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French Onion Soup

Welcome back! 
Today, we have a popular soup that actually dates from ancient times, though it gained its popularity since the 1960s. Surprisingly, this increase in demand was seen first in the United States rather than France, where people were eating fun French food like escargot. Although the dish seems simple (a big pot full of onions, right?), it's actually quite time consuming to make and involves many steps that we'll go over. But in the end, you get a nice authentic soup to enjoy!

French Onion Soup


Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

  • 3 large sweet onions, thinly sliced (this should be about 8 to 10 cups)
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • 4 to 6 cups beef broth (depending on how concentrated you want it to be, we used 4 cups)
  • 1/2 teaspoon thyme (dry or fresh)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Serve this alongside some baguette slices topped with cheese (we used Gruyere).

Directions:

  1. In a Dutch oven, put the oil and onions in and cook until soft. (About 15 minutes)
  2. Add the butter and cook until the mixture is light brown. (About another 15 minutes)
  3. Add the sugar to help it caramelize and cook until dark brown. (About 10 minutes)
  4. Add the garlic in and cook for about 5 minutes.
  5. Add the white wine and cook for another 5 minutes. At this point, there should be about 2 cups of soup in the pot.
  6. Add the beef broth and thyme and cook for about 10 minutes. The onions have been cooking for an hour now, and the everything should be at the right consistency.
  7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  8. While cooking the soup, cut up a baguette into slices that will fit in your bowl. Top them with cheese.
  9. Split the soup into cups. Put a baguette slice in each and then broil it in the oven until the cheese is melted.
  10. Voila! It's now ready to eat!
This process is pretty long, but it's worth it. You could also serve the bread on the side if you rather it be dry and crunchy but it's traditionally supposed to be in the soup.
It pairs nicely with lots of other dishes, like a light salad for a soup and salad combo. We had it alongside a tuna sandwich, which was also great.
Also, one serving of this soup is pretty much half of a large onion. That's a lot of onion!

-Chefpo

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