French Onion Soup

I have always loved French Onion Soup, so good with it's crusty cheese bread on the top. Most recipes call for beef stock, but vegetable stock is just as good, if you've got nice vegetable stock. I ran into some organic, vegetarian, french onion soup stock, so I decided to brave making the soup myself. Lucky us!

After reading a few recipes online, I used (mostly) this one. I prefer the longer slices of onion to small chopped onion in this soup, although I'm usually partial to finely chopped onions. And I like my bread in the soup. But you can chop how you like, and serve the bread on the side if you prefer. On the second go-round I added more wine, and I think that made the flavor even better.

Prep should take about 15 minutes, depending on how you chop the onions, and cooking time is about 30 minutes.

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 medium onions, sliced
500ml broth (beef, veg, french onion if you can find it)
1 tbl spoon olive oil
1 tbl spoon butter
1 cup white wine
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped (or 3 teaspoons dried)
1 clove garlic, chopped
shredded cheese to taste - gruyere is best, mozzarella is great, I used an aged, crumbly chedder, which was also delicious.

Prep your broth, so you can put the onions in as soon as they reach perfectly cooked. Slice your onions and then saute them in the butter and olive oil. The lower the heat, the less likely you'll brown the onions, but of course it will take them longer to cook. I like a medium heat, and I stay close to stir often, keeping them cooking without letting them burn. This can take from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on temp. If you can stand there stirring constantly, it'll be fast. So prep that broth! The onions should be cooked, transparent, but not totally gone, because they will cook a little in the broth, as well. I accidentally over cooked the batch in this photo, but the soup was still yummy. So...

Once the onions are done, throw in half the garlic and stir for 30 seconds. This puts a little fry into your garlic flavor, which adds depth. Then add onions and garlic to the broth, also adding the wine and thyme, and the rest of the garlic. Stir and leave on the stove at a medium heat to cook for 15-20 minutes. Don't let the onions dissolve, best way to see if it's done is to taste an onion. If it's delicious, take it off the stove.

While the soup cooks, toast two pieces of bread. Baguette is good, but we had some nutty brown bread so I used that. After it's toasted, sprinkle cheese on top and put it in the oven on broil until the cheese is mostly melted.

To serve I put the soup in bowls, then put a piece of bread on top, adding a bit more cheese and letting that create a bit of a layer on top of the soup in the oven. If you have better bowls than I do, you can probably do this more successfully.

I guarantee that the first time you make this, it'll be delicious. Then, the second time, it'll only get better. It's quite fast, but seems like a fancy dish - great for entertaining, I would say. Now that I know, I'll be making this more often.

Yummmy!