French Onion Soup

I made FOS tonight at home. It was better than any restaurants. It took some time, but on a cold winters' night, it was great.

Got the recipe from the latest Cook's Illustrated.

Did you use crocks or just regular bowls, or what? Did you use the "Best" or "Quicker" recipe?

Here's the adapted recipe (reworded to avoid copyright issues):


Soup
3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices
Table salt
2 cups water , plus extra for deglazing
1/2 cup dry sherry
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (see note)
2 cups beef broth (see note)
6 sprigs fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine
1 bay leaf
Ground black pepper

Cheese Croutons
1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400, with rack in lower-middle position. Spray the inside of a dutch oven with nonstick spray, and add butter, onions and 1tsp salt. Cook for an hour, covered, and then remove and stir, scraping the pot. Put it back in the oven with the lid off just a bit and cook for another 90-105 minutes, scraping at the hour mark, until the onions are brown and very soft.

Remove the pot, put it over medium-high heat, and keep cooking for about 15-20 minutes, or until all the onions brown and the liquid evaporates. Keep cooking for another 6-8 minutes until you have a dark crust on the bottom, and then add 1/4 cup water and deglaze. Repeat this deglazing/evaporating process two or three times, and then stir in the sherry and let it cook until it evaporates again.

Add the broth, two cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 tsp salt and deglaze again. Bring to a simmer over high heat, and then reduce the heat back down and let it simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Toss the herbs and season with s+p.

To make the croutons, bake the baguette slices on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until dry and golden.

Service: Fill broiler-safe crocks with soup, top with baguette slices, sprinkle with gruyere, and broil (6" or so from the element) for about 3-5 minutes until the cheese is melted bubbly, and then let it cool for another 5.

Ed,
Thanks for posting the recipe. Two questions: what is the "note" regarding the chicken and beef broth? And, is it a reasonable assumption that they chose sherry instead of wine for its presumed additional depth of flavor? I've always used red wine.

I think your second guess is probably right, but I think dry sherry is also more traditional.

The note about the broth is just that their favorite commercial broths are Swanson Organic Free Range Chicken Broth, and Pacific Beef Broth.

Coincidence- we're making the CI French onion soup this afternoon. Preparing a tailgate party to watch the Steelers.

Ed,

After toasting the croutons, try rubbing them with a cut raw garlic clove to add a nice hot garlicky note. It's lovely with the nutty Gruyere.

You might also want to try finishing your soup with a bit of raw sherry.

Sounds like you're on the right track.

I like that advice, especially the sherry at the end, but I do want to note that that's a rewritten version of the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which I haven't yet made.

Do you have any other advice? I'm tempted to do this next weekend. Is a kitchen torch an at all suitable replacement for broiling the cheese?

A torch might be ok for gratineeing the top layer, but a hot oven and finishing under the broiler is the best substitute for a salamander.

Some grated parmesan on top of the gruyere is also nice.

Anyone have suggestions for a place to find inexpensive broiler-safe crocks? Ideally open on Sunday?

gleam wrote:Anyone have suggestions for a place to find inexpensive broiler-safe crocks? Ideally open on Sunday?

Target comes to mind. They stock Corningware.

gleam wrote:Anyone have suggestions for a place to find inexpensive broiler-safe crocks? Ideally open on Sunday?

Bed Bath & Beyond. Look for one of their ubiquitous 20% off coupons.

Ended up picking up some of these, which nearly perfectly match our dishes. They went through a trip under the broiler without incident, and the handles on the side are useful for both moving them from the broiler and drinking the last few teaspoons of soup.

Second batch turned out well, but I'd suggest ignoring the cooks illustrated recommendation to slice the onions pole-to-pole. That slicing gets you long, intact strips of onion when the soup is done, but I think they brown better and taste better sliced along the equator.

I have always used Julia Child's recipe for FOS, the one found in The Way To Cook. Except instead of white wine I add Bianco vermouth. I add the cognac at the end, as she suggests.

I think I will have to make this soon!

I made this recipie tonight. I made a half batch, which may have affected my experience. It turned out great, but I had to keep a closer eye on the onions than CI recommends, especially as time progresses. Instead of just checking once an hour, after the first hour I took a look every 20 minutes of so to stir up the onions. In fact, I had to trash my first batch because they burnt during the long time unobserved in the oven. I also ended up cooking them at 350, turing up to 400 only for the last 30-60 min. Also, once I transferred to the stove top, I found I had to almost constantly stir the onions as I went through the multiple deglazing steps, but this process did wonders for the overall taste of the dish.

Regarding bowls, I wanted to get these, from Sur Le Table but they were out, so I ended up getting thesefrom Crate and Barrel.

I found that the sherry enhnaced the sweetness of the carmelized onions in a way that another dry red wine would not have. If I had to choose an alternative, I'd choose another fortified wine.

I'll also throw my hat in with the people who prefer the pole-to-pole onion slicing, although I did cut them thinner (1/8th inch) than CI recommended (1/4 inch) and thought it turned out well.

We had it along with a braised bottom round using a method inspired by Thomas Keller's Beef Bourguignon recipie in Bouchon and garlic mashed potatoes. And the requisite bottle of red wine.

I will second Liz's recommendation of Julia Child's FOS. I've tried out a few other recipes, but always come back to this. I've been using the white wine as she suggests, but next time will go with the vermouth.

Kwe730 wrote:I will second Liz's recommendation of Julia Child's FOS. I've tried out a few other recipes, but always come back to this. I've been using the white wine as she suggests, but next time will go with the vermouth.

I'll third the Child recipe - I use vermouth and armagnac. The quality of the bread and stock make a big difference in this dish. White onions are better, IMO.

Once went to a friend's house for FOS which consisted of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, salad croutons, and Kraft Grated Parm powder.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:Once went to a friend's house for FOS which consisted of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, salad croutons, and Kraft Grated Parm powder.

Are they still your friend?

Once went to a friend's house for FOS which consisted of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, salad croutons, and Kraft Grated Parm powder.

Bill/SFNM[/quote]

I once went to a friends house for eggs benedict & the hollandaise consisted of a packet of Knorr's. No wonder she said she liked to "make it all the time, it's so easy"!

eatchicago wrote:

Bill/SFNM wrote:Once went to a friend's house for FOS which consisted of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, salad croutons, and Kraft Grated Parm powder.

Are they still your friend?

Some friends have other redeeming qualities and, in this case, the benefit of a smug sense of superiority.

Actually, I made the Child version for her and she now understands FOS.

Bill/SFNM wrote:

Kwe730 wrote:I will second Liz's recommendation of Julia Child's FOS. I've tried out a few other recipes, but always come back to this. I've been using the white wine as she suggests, but next time will go with the vermouth.

I'll third the Child recipe - I use vermouth and armagnac. The quality of the bread and stock make a big difference in this dish. White onions are better, IMO.

I use the Cook's Illustrated/The Best Recipe (available here, and different from a more recent one on the CI site which uses yellow onions but requires a subscription).

Typical to CI, it has wacky instructions such as two different kinds of broth but is otherwise extremely simple. It uses red onions, which I think added a lot of flavor. When we made this last week, I used Wolfgang Puck Beef Stock, which also improved the flavor significantly over ordinary beef broth. I didn't have the Asiago they recommended, but reggiano was a good substitute. Having used all the swiss I had in the house, the leftovers for lunch the next day were covered with muenster (y'know, the rubbery american stuff, not the stinky french stuff), and it also provided a very nice flavor.