Soupe à l’oignon or the French onion soup story

by Pam, Sydney (Australia)

This week end, I went camping with friends on a beach of the New South Wales central coast. While the scenary was breathtaking and the adventure fantastic, for food, we resorted most of the times to the casual picnic snack. In particular, someone had brought a series of crackers, same crackers, different flavour: bbq, pizza, cheese & bacon and french onions. French onions?! I knew that Frenchs have a tendency of taking over anything which is good about food, but I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a particular french species of onions. A taste of the cracker gave the answer. It was a French onion soup flavoured cracker! Soupe à l’oignon!

Tossing my 2 cents worth of recipie.

• Servings: 4 serves
• Preparation times:
  • Active: 30 minutes
• Ingredients:
  • 2 big onions
  • 1.25l of water
  • 0.25l of white wine
  • half a baguette (or any other thick-crusted bread)
  • cheese, grated
  • butter
  • salt, pepper
• Steps:
  1. Pre-heat oven at 250 degres Celsius.
  2. Cut the onions into thin slices.
  3. Heat butter in a pot over medium heat.
  4. Add the onions in the pot and stir gently until they caramelise into a nice golden brown colour.
  5. Add the wine and water. Bring to boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
  6. While the soup is simmering, cut the baguette bread into 8 thick slices (about 3cm thick).
  7. After simmering, the soup should have a nice brown colour. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.
  8. In each bowl, place 2 slices of bread and pour the soup on top.
  9. Spread the grated cheese over each bowls. The more cheese the better.
  10. Put the bowls in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.
  11. If you have a griller in our oven, action it to termostat 5 for the last 5 minutes to give the cheese a nice golden colour.
• Notes:
  • I like the silkiness of thicker slices of bread in the soup. However, some people prefer thiner slices of bread.
  • Frenchs often use Swiss cheese such as Emmentaler for baking, however any firm mountain cheese (eg. Parmesan) could do.
  • You can turn the above recipie into a main course. It will then serve 2. It will go well with a salad and a glass of white wine.