Perfect French Onion

Back in the mid '90s I was doing quite a bit of traveling for work that took me to Washington DC. I found this old french bistro in Georgetown, Au Pied Cochon, that had the most wonderful French Onion Soup. I'll never forget sitting in that place and people watching. The restaurant was famous because a Soviet spy surrendered to the CIA there during the cold war. They had a copper plaque in the booth commemorating the event.

Anyway, I gave French Onion Soup a shot for Soup At Work Wednesday today. I have been reluctant to make French Onion because I wanted to do it the right way by roasting the bowls to melt the cheese for each serving and there's no way to do that when I'm serving out of a 7 quart crock pot. I decided to step into the breach anyway after watching an episode of "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS a couple of weeks ago where they made a French Onion Soup that looked really good and simple to make. I also learned a new term, fond. That's the good chunky, crispy stuff that accumulates in a pot of food while cooking and comes off while deglazing. That's what makes this soup so flavorful and hearty. This is a hearty soup, especially considering the only ingredients of note are onions and broth.

I doubled this recipe and ended up with a full 7 quart crock pot of soup, there's more info on doubling the recipe at the end of this posting. Be sure you give yourself at least 3.5 hours to devote to this recipe from beginning to end. Most of that time doesn't require any attention because the onions are cooking in the oven but you still have to devote the time.

Sweet onions like Vidalias don't work for this recipe because it becomes too sweet. For the best flavor make the soup a day or two in advance. Another approach is to go through step 1 and refrigerate the onions in the prep pot for up to three days and then finish the recipe.

Ingredients

3 tbsp butter cut into 3 pieces

6 large yellow onions, about 4 lbs, halved lengthwise and then cut into 1/4 inch thick slices

Salt

2 cups of water, plus extra for deglazing

1/2 cup of dry sherry

4 cups of chicken broth (I prefer Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth which I get at Costco or Sprouts)
2 cups of beef broth (Pacific Natural Foods also)

6 sprigs of fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine

1 bay leaf

Black pepper

1 baguette cut into 1/2 inch slices

8 oz shredded Gruyere cheese, about 2.5 cups

1. Adjust your oven rack to lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large, at least 7 quarts, pot or Dutch oven with nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add onions and 1 tsp of salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot if fond has been created. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook the onions until they are very soft and golden brown, about 1.5-1.75 hours longer, stirring and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot after the first hour.
2. Using oven mitts, carefully remove the pot from the oven and place on the stove top over medium-high heat. Cook the onions while stirring intermittently and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, about 20-30 minutes. Intermittent stirring allows the fond to form so don't be afraid to let the onions cook without stirring. The dark stuff is what you want so don't fear that you're burning the onions. The dark stuff is the good flavor.
3. Continue to cook on the stove top and scraping the fond with your spoon and also scrape the fond off of the spoon back into the onions. Stir in 1/4 cup of water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen the fond, and cook until the water evaporates and the pot bottom has formed another dark crust of fond. Repeat the process of deglazing with 1/4 cups of water 2 or 3 more times until the onions are VERY dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates.
4. Stir in both broths, 2 cups of water, thyme bundle, bay leaf and 1/2 tsp of salt, scraping up any final bits of fond from the bottom and sides of the pot. Increase the temp to high and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and simmer covered for 30 minutes. Remove the thyme bundle and bay leaf, season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in a single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and bake in a 4oo degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp and golden at the edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.
6. Adjust the oven rack so that the it is 6 inches from the broiler element and heat the broiler. Set individual broiler safe crocks on a baking sheet and fill each about 3/4 full with soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices without overlapping them. Sprinkle somewhat lightly with the Gruyere. Broil the crocks until the cheese is melted and bubbly around the edges, 3-5 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

As I mentioned previously, I doubled the recipe for Soup At Work Wednesday. I made the mistake of cooking all 12 onions in one pot for the first hour in the oven. There were too many onions in the one pot and they didn't cook down well enough so I split the onions into two pots and cooked in the oven for another 45 minutes. I then continued to use two pots until the onions were completely cooked and took on the deep dark brown color called for in the recipe.

I'll reiterate that you need to leave yourself plenty of time for this recipe and be patient because it does take more than 3 hours.

The soup was a big hit at work. My friend Shannon offered to bring the grated Gruyere which was a great help. As I mentioned, I was reluctant to bring in a French Onion soup because there's no way to broil the soup with the cheese and croutons like you would at home. So the approach I took was to serve out of the crock pot with the cheese and baguettes on the side. The soup was hot enough to melt the cheese well enough and it worked out really well.

A Success!!