Wanna Green Bean: French Onion Soup

4 April 2008

French Onion Soup

Ah, onions.

I’m told that when I was a baby/toddler my grandfather used to give me whole onions to just munch on like you would an apple. I’m not as fond of onions now as I was then.

Whenever I order something like a hamburger or sandwich, I very strictly specify no onions. I can’t stand the things, most of the time they’re little crunchy chunks of strong taste that usually just mess up whatever I’m eating. If they aren’t crunchy then they’re long and stringy.

The first time I made cucumber salad I left the onions out because I thought they were gross. The resulting salad was even worse though.

One thing that does include onions that I love, and don’t even mind eating the onions in, is french onion soup. I’ll admit, the only reason I ate it in the first place was the the melted cheese on top. Then I found out french onion soup, doesn’t taste like onions.

Up until this point I had been dining on soup from restaurants. The canned stuff was just disgusting and my mom’s was just lacking.

I’m still working on perfecting on my personal recipe every time I make it, but this is what I have so far:

Ingredients:
1 large spanish onion (I prefer this to a yellow or sweet onion)
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp flour
4 cups beef broth (or vegetable)
pepper
1/2 tsp ground sage

For toasty cheese topping:
1 slice of toasted bread cubed or sliced (your preference)
1-2 slices of swiss cheese, or shredded, (or mozzarella, or gruyere)

Peel and slice the onion very thinly. If you don’t want long stringy pieces of onion cut the slice in half.

Melt the butter in the olive oil on low heat in a large soup pot, making sure it doesn’t burn. Add the onions and stir to coat.

Cook the onions on low heat until translucent and soft.

Add the salt and sugar, stir.

Bring the heat up to medium, medium-high heat, and cook until a deep golden brown throughout. Stir frequently making sure that they cook, but not burn. At this point they’ve broken down, and only partially still look like onions.

When they are cooked, turn the heat down again to low and stir in 3 tablespoons of flour. Stir with the onions until the onions are coated and the mixture is paste-like. If the flour is not sticking, add another tablespoon of butter. Cook another minute or two so that the flour browns.

Add about 1 cup of the beef broth and mix well. It should be a thick consistency without any lumps but the onions.