French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup Au Gratin

The hardest thing about making French onion soup is having patience to caramelize the onions just right -- otherwise, it's a snap!

When we lived in New Jersey a couple of young guys from our town opened a great little restaurant that rivaled any bougie NYC bistro of the time. We fell in love with the Backstreet Gourmet in Nutley the very first time we ate there. If you don't want to share my little walk down memory lane, feel free to skip to the recipe.

At the time I was writing a fairly popular column for the local weekly paper, The Nutley Sun and convinced the publisher and editor to let me write a restaurant review of Backstreet for my column one week The paper tried to avoid such things for fear of alienating advertisers or being accused of writing good reviews for those who do advertise. That said, the publisher and editor ultimately agreed to let me write the review. In doing so, I ended up interviewing the proprietors Giovanni (Jon) Conturso and Mark Conca and as you might guess if you know me, we became friends.

Jon was the chef and Mark handled the front end. Not surprisingly, Mark was the outgoing one and Jon the one who just wanted to be at his stove and not have to talk to people except his staff.

I don't even remember how this came about, but I had a connection to the local adult education program and got it in my head that Jon should teach cooking classes. Leadership at the program loved the idea and after a bit, I managed to convince John that teaching the cooking classes would be a nice way to market Backstreet Gourmet and would even be fun for him. I promised him that I would take the classes if he taught them, and he did and I did! One of the recipes he taught us was French onion soup. There, now you know where I was going with this!

Making this dish is an exercise in patience which, as anyone who knows me, is not my long suit. It was literally torture when Jon instructed us to melt the butter, add the onions and some salt, and then cover and cook on a really low heat until the onions were light and golden. I kept wanting to peek and kept getting reprimanded because by removing the lid I was letting out precious steam (and flavor).

Since the pot lid wasn't glass, I couldn't see what was happening and learned to depend on my nose to keep tabs on the caramelizing process. But let me say again, it was torture -- but SO worth it when all was said and done. If you happen to have a stock pot with a glass lid as I do now, it's definitely easier to keep an eye on things, and in the end, a great way to train your nose on what perfectly caramelized onions smell like.

Over the years, I have taken what Jon taught me that night in the Home-Ec classroom at Nutley High School (remember hone economics classes?) and evolved it into my own recipe, but I always follow his rule for caramelizing the onions slowly to a perfect golden without burning them. One thing I've come to do is infuse the soup with parmesan cheese rinds. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but I save all the cheese rinds I get from grating the cheese. They keep forever in the freezer in a zipper bag. Then I boil them in soups or anyplace else I want that delicious flavor. The rinds will get gooey in the liquid but are typically pretty easy to remove with a slotted spoon when you're ready to serve. When I do onion soup, I actually tie up the cheese rinds in some cheesecloth which makes it easier to get the gooey rinds out.

THE RECIPE:

8 C coarsely chopped onions

1 stick of butter

1/4 C flour separated

Salt / Pepper

1/ C Herbs de Provence

1C Sherry

1 can beef consomme

1/4 C soy sauce

1/4 C Worcestershire Sauce4 C beef broth

Parmesan cheese rinds

Melt a stick of butter with 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of herb de Provence in a large stockpot.

Add the onions, cover the pot and simmer on low heat for what will seem like ever.

When the onions are a light golden color, stir in the flour and keep stirring until it thickens and the flour begins to pick up that golden color. It may want to stick a bit and that's OK, just keep stirring so it doesn't burn.

When the mixture is golden, carefully add the sherry and stir to deglaze anything that began to stick to the bottom of the pot.

Add the consomme followed by the soy, Worcestershire, and beef broth.

Simmer until well combined and add the remaining herbs de Provence.

Taste and season with salt and pepper to taste.

If you want to make it Au Gratin, place a good sized chunk of dense or stale bread in an oven-safe bowl, ladle soup into the bowl, and add mound of shredded cheese on top. Place under the broiler until the cheese is melted and reaches your desired level of golden toasted. I like using a combination of Gruyere, Swiss, and Parmesan, although Gruyere is the traditional choice.

This was delish with the zucchini muffins for a light but nutritious and satisfying supper.