French Onion Soup
Ninety minutes of onions and about six of everything else. There is no shortcut and the shortcut versions taste like it.
- Prep
- 20m
- Cook
- 1h 50m
- Total
- 2h 10m
- Serves
- 4
- Effort
- Moderate
Scale
Units
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 3 tbsp | Cook the onions slowly until deep mahogany 1h 30m 90 minutes, stirring every few. Not 20 — the colour is the entire dish. | Deglaze and reduce 8m | Simmer 30 minutes, then season 30m | Ladle into bowls, float the toast, pile on the cheese 5m | Grill until the cheese is blistered and browned 5m | |
| 1.5 kg | ||||||
| 1 tsp | ||||||
| 1 tsp | ||||||
| 1/2 cup | ||||||
| 1.2 l | ||||||
| a few sprigs | ||||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 4 thick slices | ||||||
| 200 g | ||||||
| to taste | ||||||
-
Cook the onions slowly until deep mahogany
1h 30m- butter 3 tbsp
- onions 1.5 kg
- salt 1 tsp
- sugar (optional) 1 tsp
90 minutes, stirring every few. Not 20 — the colour is the entire dish.
-
Deglaze and reduce
8m- from 1 Cook the onions slowly until deep mahogany
- dry sherry or white wine 1/2 cup
-
Simmer 30 minutes, then season
30m- from 2 Deglaze and reduce
- beef or mushroom stock 1.2 l
- thyme a few sprigs
- bay leaf 1
-
Ladle into bowls, float the toast, pile on the cheese
5m- from 3 Simmer 30 minutes, then season
- baguette 4 thick slices
- Gruyère 200 g
-
Grill until the cheese is blistered and browned
5m- from 4 Ladle into bowls, float the toast, pile on the cheese
- black pepper to taste
The ninety minutes
Onions are about 90 % water and roughly 5 % sugar. Cooking them down drives off the water and lets that sugar caramelise — a process that genuinely takes an hour and a half over moderate heat. Higher heat scorches the outside before the inside softens. The pale, sweet, “caramelised” onions produced in twenty minutes are a different ingredient.
Notes
- Deglaze whenever a brown film builds on the pan. That fond is concentrated onion, and leaving it there risks burning it.
- Toast the bread properly dry, or it disintegrates into the soup.
- A splash of sherry vinegar at the end sharpens what is otherwise very sweet.