ISO French Onion Soup recipe, TNT please.

[buckytom]

lately, we've gone to a few restaurants that all claim to have the best french onion soup around. i love french onion soup, so i often order it when it's on a menu, especially with such lofty claims.

all were not kidding! we've had some really good french onion soups recently, so i thought i should give it a go at home. the best two so far were at big daddy's bbq in bartonsville, pennsylvania, and at the iron horse restaurant in westwood, n.j..

does anyone have a tnt recipe for their french onion soup? i was thinking of starting on the stove (to carmelize the onions) and finishing in a crock pot if possible.

tia.

 

[Andy M.]

BT here's my adaption of one of Julia's onion soup recipes.

I don't think you'll need slow cooker. It doesn't have to cook that long.

Good luck in your quest.


French Onion Soup

6 C Sliced Onions1
1 Tb Olive Oil
3 Tb Butter
1 tsp Salt
½ tsp Sugar
3 Tb Flour
8 C Beef Broth
½ C White Wine
2 Tb Brandy
½ In Slices if French Bread
Olive Oil
8 Oz Gruyere Cheese, shredded

Peel and slice the onions into thin, short slices.

Heat a large pan and add the oil and butter.

Add the onions and cook over low heat, covered, for 15 minutes.

Add the salt and sugar and stir them into the onions. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, stirring frequently. The onions should be a dark golden brown when done.

Sprinkle the flour onto the onions and cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Combine the liquids and stir them into the onion mixture. Scrape the bottom of the pan to unstick any cooked on food bits. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

Spread the slices of bread with olive oil on both sides and toast under the broiler until golden brown.

Ladle the soup into crocks, cover with toasted bread. Divide the cheese among the crocks.

Place the crocks on a cookie sheet and place under the broiler. Broil until the cheese is bubbling.


1 Use one of the sweet varieties of onion, such as Vidalia or Maui. Spanish onions are also a good choice. Four of these onions should equal 6 cups. A combination of different onions can be used.

 

[Alix]

Hey BT, I don't have exact measurements (so use Andy's!) but as an alternative, I slice my onions, toss them with oil and put them on a baking sheet in the oven. I also roast the beef bones in the oven before I make the stock. I don't use sherry, I use either brandy or whatever red wine happens to be open. If the red wine is particularly acidic, I will add a bit of brown sugar to the stock.

I will note that the best way to do the "topping" is to cube up some french bread and let it get thoroughly stale. The cubes are WAY easier to use when broiling the cheese. You can get a more uniform layer. French bread also sucks up the soup the best.

Whatever recipe you choose, make sure you fill the bowls quite full with piping hot soup, top with the cubed bread and leave for a moment to absorb some liquid. Then top with whatever cheese you are using and pop under the broiler just long enough to bubble the cheese.

 

[buckytom]

thanks very much andy and alix. you guys are the best.

andy, that looks very do-able for me. i can't wait to try it out. maybe later this week. will post results.

alix, thanks for the tips. i like the idea of using bread cubes instead of a big hunk o' bread in the middle. that's the way the restaurant big daddy's bbq in the poconos does it, which i liked very much. no tring to saw off a piece of bread with a spoon.

now i need to find some soup crocks.

 

[Alix]

Mine are from the dollar store...and they are TOUGH.

 

[Andy M.]

...no tring to saw off a piece of bread with a spoon...

This is the most annoying part of the process for me. The 'best' way is to buy a big round loaf and use the inverted bowl as a template to cut rounds of bread from slices off the loaf. Then toast the rounds - perfect fit. But it really wrecks a loaf of bread.

 

[pacanis]

I've had crocks on my mind, too. I know I've got somewhere, or used to... but dang if I can find them. I need to Google them I guess, as Kohl's didn't have them.
AB had a Vidialia onion recipe I wanted to try.

 

[Andy M.]

I made it with all vidalias once and didn't care fore the sweetness. I usually go with a mixture of different onion types.

 

[pacanis]

Thanks for the input, Andy. Maybe I'll just make one crock at a time until I hit on something I like.

 

[Andy M.]

Your tastes may differ. Try it.

 

[pacanis]

Your tastes may differ. Try it.

Oh I will, I'll just cut back the recipe until I hit on one I like. Probably a good idea anyway.

 

[NoraC]

Onion soup is 3 things that have to be balanced as far as I am concerned: extraordinary caramelized onions, exquisite beef stock and a great bread raft. Rather than spend an hour or more on the onions, I rely on water, soda, and sugar. Slice the onions julienne, not half moons, and start in half butter half olive oil to sweat. As soon as the first color appears add a pinch of baking soda to make the mixture a little more alkaline; this speeds the browning. A pinch is enough for almost any quantity, because what you want is little nuclei of browning to happen. At the same time add a pinch of sugar to aid the sugar in the onions to brown. Keep coking and stirring. Now water is your friend. If you have noting to do but stir onions, crank up the heat and let the browning proceed; need to stop and let the dog out or answer the phone? Want it to proceed a little slower than your burner will go, while you work on a salad? Add a little water; you won't lose much heat, but will prevent burning. When you have almost onion jam, you are good with that step.

For the stock, make your best home made version, then brown a bit of hamburger meat - like that last little bit that wasn't enough for a patty, so you stuck it in the freezer for this purpose. Deglaze the skillet with the stock, add the browned meat and simmer a few minutes, before straining. It is kind of a simple double stock, but once you get into the habit of keeping 1/4 - 1/3 pound bits of leftover hamburger in the freezer door, you will learn to make even bought stock edible with this method. Put your stock and onions together in the proportion of onion to stock you like, with an alcohol fortification if you like; I don't. Prefer mine on the side.
The raft can be a bowl size cut out of bread, a slice, or anything you like. MY fave is large homemade croutons, topped with shredded swiss cheese, run under the broiler. A slice of swiss doesn't drape into the crouton craters as much as I like; YMMV.

 

[Claire]

My husband makes it for me but I have a few hints from him. Red wine and/or dry sherry work well for the alcohol content. It works best if you really, really have patience in the onion carmelizing phase of the recipe. More important than the phase after adding the liquids. If you don't brown the onions slowly, you can wind up with bitter, crunchy onions, if you do it too high and fast they'll be tough and stringy. Andy, what I reallly like about your recipe is what we do. Most people want that restaurant look, but the bread toasted, coated with cheese, then broiled works so much better for us home cooks than trying to (a) buy the oven-proof crocks and (b) doing that thing last-minute when you have guests and are doing this as a first course. Husband likes 1/2 tsp of thyme (more if fresh) and 1 bay leaf. If you make the stock from scratch and store it, the herbs will probably be in there, but if you use packaged, it will freshen it to add your own herbs.

 

[ranleemil]

Creamy Onion Soup

While we're on the onion soup subject, there was a French Woman who cooked at several restaurants in my area about 25 years ago and she made an onion soup that was very "creamy" and thick. The broth was not clear and it was served in the traditional way with a crouton and gruyere cheese. All I know is that it was very good and the "oldtimers" still talk about it. Has anyone had an onion soup with that description? Recipe, maybe?!?!

 

[pacanis]

That sounds interesting, ran, and good. I wonder if any of our members has ran across this...

 

[Alix]

Not me. My soup gets creamy looking after a few bites because the cheese has oozed into it.

Pacanis, I like multiplier and spanish onions for my french onion soup. Not too sweet and with some excellent zip.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I made a Cream of Onion soup with Spanish onions. Sweat the onions in butter and caramelize, stir in flour to make a roux, add beef broth cook until thickened, sea salt to taste, remove from heat and stir in whipping cream. Serve. I didn't do the croutons and cheese with it, but you could.

Hmmm...Cream of Garlic Soup...

 

[ranleemil]

Roux

I made a Cream of Onion soup with Spanish onions. Sweat the onions in butter and caramelize, stir in flour to make a roux, add beef broth cook until thickened, sea salt to taste, remove from heat and stir in whipping cream. Serve. I didn't do the croutons and cheese with it, but you could.

Hmmm...Cream of Garlic Soup...

The roux thing has my mind working, but I'm pretty sure her soup did not include any dairy product besides the garnish.

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

I use an obscene amount of spanish onions for mine. To speed the process, I also julienne them thinly. For a long time I did the stand at the stove method, but as of late have adopted the low and slow oven method. The julienned onions get a light toss in canola oil (or rendered animal fat like schmaltz if you have it) along with a few good pinches of Kosher salt.

For the stock, I definitely go homemade. I generally use a reduced brown chicken stock (reserving the fat for the onions above).

Once the onions are finished, I transfer them to a pot and deglaze the pan into the pot with some of the stock. Then I add enough stock to get the consistency I want. This gets simmered for at least an hour. I use to add a sprig of thyme, but lately I've just gone with the stock and onions.

At this point the soup needs a spike of acid and trace of alcohol. I like to use a bit of hard cider or Calvados (apple brandy).

I also use the large bite-size crouton method rather than a round that is difficult to cut without overflowing the crock. I don't trim the crust either - I like the occasional chewy bit. We have the little crocks (which we also use to serve baked beans and many braised dishes). Soup in, croutons on top, large shreds of Gruyere, broil to melt the cheese around the rim and develop brown/black spots, and then serve (with a napalm warning).

 

[Rocklobster]

One thing you can try is to put your bread in first, then add soup, then cheese. the bread will float to the top with the onions and create a good platform for your cheese, so it doesn't sink while broiling/baking. Then you can add some of your favorite liquor just before serving for an extra bit of oomph!!