French onion soup.

As you might see by the distinct void of anything French on my blog thus far, I am not an avid fan of cooking French cuisine.  I especially avoid so-called "haute cuisine" where you end up with something that more resembles a painting rather than a meal on your plate.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying to eat that kind of offering, since there's no way I can ascend to those dizzying heights of gastronomy in my own kitchen.  

Provincial French cooking, however, is something that I do look.  if you have ever read the book of the same title by Elizabeth David you can begin to appreciate the delicate simplicity of splicing ingredients together that "just work".  Ratatouille and caviar d'aubergine are two such recipes that are so simple, where the marriage of flavours elevate it to another dimension. 

French onion soup is something you will always find on a generic "Cafe Rouge' or faux French restaurant in England.  Often it will be watery, insipid and lacking depth.  Cooking it in the Norman style, using calvados and a little cider though, coaxes a wave of ensuing sweetness and depth from the humble onion.

I made it last night, traditionally served with a crouton of bread on top with some Gruyere (that's Swiss isn't it?) cheese sprinkled on board.

It takes some time to make, and it really needs a decent stock (as all good soups do) to make it sing so vibrantly like this.  If you have a decent chicken stock, as I did, you can use this in combination with a beef stock pot.  This works almost as well as if you had a good bouillon of beef in the first place.


The use of alcohol can be avoided if you really wish to, but I utterly advocate its addition, especially the cider.

French onion soup

•   Finely slice (not chop) 4, large, good quality onions.
•   In a large pan add a wedge (around 50-60g) unsalted butter and a few glugs of a decent olive oil.
•   Heat the pan to a medium heat and add all the onion.  Don't be alarmed, these cook down and reduce massively.
•   Cook the onions on a medium to low heat for 2 hours, turning infrequently.  Don't be tempted to sit there turning every 5 minutes, we need caramelization here.  If the onions look to be drying out, add some more oil.
•   After 2 hours the onions should be deep brown in colour, sweet to the nose, and oozing oil.
•   Add a tablespoon of plain flour, stir to mix in and increase the heat.  Cook for 1-2 minutes.
•   Add a tablespoon of cider vinegar, a slug of calvados (cognac will work if you don't have calvados) and 250ml of decent quality cider.  Increase the heat, deglaze the pan and cook off some of the booze.
•   Strip 3 bushy sprigs of thyme of their leaves and add to the pan.
•   Add 1 litre of decent beef stock, or, as in my case half a litre of chicken stock, a beef stock pot and top up with water.
•   Check the seasoning.  Sometimes stock pots can be salty.  it will definitely need some turns of black pepper.
•   Allow the soup to cook on a low heat for a further 20-30 minutes.
•   Serve with a crouton of bread topped with gruyere (or any good, hard, melting cheese).