Stop me and buy one!

It’s almost summer, and things like asparagus, beautiful cherries, and new potatoes are in season. It should be the time for light food and chilled white wine, but the weather today isn’t really inclined that way at all.

It’s weather for staying indoors, for hearty red wines, and for the sort of comforting food that warms you up and hugs you inside. The perfect weather for a rich French onion soup.

Most people would recognise this dish by the name French onion soup, but both the Spanish and the Italians have traditional onion soup recipes that are practically identical, these are traditional peasant dishes, with nothing fancy or complex about them.

Onion soups are rich and deep in flavour with the sweet caramelised onions, combining with the richness of the beef stock and the wine to make them homely and heartwarming. Pay a little attention to the ingredients that you use, don’t burn it, and you will find it difficult to find many dishes that will be as satisfying and put a smile on your face like this one.

Notes on ingredients

It might be called onion soup, but the most important ingredients are the beef stock and the wine.

Always use the best stock that you can get your hands on, because this is where most of the flavour in the soup comes from. You can either use stock that you have made yourself, or you could buy the stock. If you are buying it then try to get a packet of fresh stock from your local butcher, rather than stock cubes.

I have made this soup once with a vegetable stock, when we had a vegetarian guest. It was ‘nice’, but that’s about the best that I can say about it, it lacked all of the heart and warmth of the beefy version.

The wine doesn’t have to be expensive, the most important thing is that it is dry. The sugar and the caramelised onion carry a lot of sweetness, and you need a dry wine to offset this. Traditionally it should be French of course, but don’t worry about that, just try to pick something quite robust and not too fruity. If you don’t have cognac don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be in there, but I do think it adds a lot and gives an extra warming layer to the soup.

The cheese on the croutons should be gruyère. Apart from the taste, the main reason for this is the way that it melts. If for any reason you can’t get gruyère then look for a cheese that is not too intense in taste, and that will melt and brown nicely under the grill.

The recipe

Make the croutons

1. Heat the oven to 180°C.

2. Crush the garlic.

3. Drizzle olive oil onto a good (not all bendy) baking tray, throw on the crushed garlic, and rub the oil/garlic mixture all over the tray.

4. Cut the baguette into 1.5cm (⅔”) thick slices. These will be much prettier if you cut them on a diagonal, instead of straight.

5. Put the bread slices onto the baking sheet, shake them around slightly, and then turn them over so that both sides are lightly coated with the oil/garlic.

6. Bake the croutons in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, until they are crunchy and crispy.

Make the soup

1. Thinly slice the onions, and crush the garlic.

2. Melt the oil and butter together in a thick bottomed pan.

3. When the oil/butter mix is very hot, add the onions, garlic and sugar all together.

4. Cook for about 6 minutes, turning them over occasionally, until the edges of the onions have turned dark.

5. Turn the heat down as low as it will go, and then leave the onions to cook slowly for about half an hour. When they are done, the bottom of the pan should be covered in a caramelised film which will be a nutty brown colour.

6. Pour in the beef stock, wine and cognac, season with salt and black pepper and use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape the caramelised onion from the bottom of the pan.
   Turn the heat up stir occasionally while you bring the soup up to simmering point.

7. Turn the heat back down as low as you can get it and leave the soup to cook really gently, uncovered, for about an hour.

Assemble and serve

1. 10 minutes before the soup has finished cooking, pop the bowls or tureen that you are going to serve it in, into the oven on a very low heat to warm up.

2. While the bowls are heating, grate the gruyère.

3. Take the bowls out of the oven, and turn the grill onto the highest heat

4. Check and adjust the seasoning, and transfer the soup to your pre-warmed bowls or tureen.

5. Float the croutons on top of the soup (as few or as many as you like), and sprinkle the cheese thickly over the croutons.

6. Put the soup under the grill until the cheese turns golden brown and is bubbling.

Serve it immediately, but be careful when you eat it because it one of those things that hold their heat like the surface of the sun.