Sunday, May 20, 2012

French Onion Soup



  • (Please excuse the photo, under the broiler it bubbled and made a bit of a mess of the white dish.  
  • I promise it's delish!)

  • When we were in Amsterdam I had this wonderful French Onion soup for lunch.  It was probably the best French Onion soup I've ever had.  When we got home we had a ton of onions from our CSA boxes so I thought, when you have a ton of onions, you make onion soup!  ;)

  • This was a very nice soup and easy to throw together.  I had everything on hand except for the baguette and the Gruyere cheese.  Served with a salad and you have a great week night meal.  I found this recipe on allrecipes.com but made a few small changes.  My changes are shown below.  

  • Ingredients:
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 large red onions, thinly sliced
  • 2 large sweet onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 (48 fluid ounce) can chicken broth
  • 1 (16 ounce) can beef broth
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 tsp dried parsley
  • 1/4 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 4 thick slices French or Italian bread
  • 8 slices Gruyere or Swiss cheese slices, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, room temperature
  • 4 pinches paprika

Directions:

Melt butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. Stir in salt, red onions and sweet onions. Cook 35 minutes, stirring frequently, until onions are caramelized and almost syrupy.

Mix chicken broth, beef broth, red wine, parsley, thyme, bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce into pot.  Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low, mix in vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Cover and keep over low heat to stay hot while you prepare the bread.

Preheat oven broiler. Arrange bread slices on a baking sheet and broil 3 minutes, turning once, until well toasted on both sides. Remove from heat; do not turn off broiler.

Arrange 4 large oven safe bowls or crocks on a rimmed baking sheet. Fill each bowl 2/3 full with hot soup. Top each bowl with 1 slice toasted bread, 2 slice Gruyere cheese and 1/4 of the mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle a little bit of paprika over the top of each one.

Broil 5 minutes, or until bubbly and golden brown. As it softens, the cheese will cascade over the sides of the crock and form a beautifully melted crusty seal. Serve immediately!




No comments: