French Onion Soup with Homemade Beef Broth//Garlicky Toasted Baguette//Melted Gruyère Cheese
This soup is a national treasure, and one that tastes like home to me. The combination of the caramelized onions, bouillon, wine, and armagnac creates an unctuous soup, rich in flavour, and of course perfectly balanced. Paired with the crunchy, garlic-rubbed baguette slices, and melted gruyère cheese, it’s an explosion to the senses.
It’s also one of those dishes which is a true labour of love to prepare. It’s not difficult to make, but to be made properly, the steps, and time allotted to each, must be respected, like all things worthwhile. The onions (of this quantity) will take around an hour to caramelize, so perhaps plan to make this on a weekend, and prepare yourself with a lovely drink and a nice book…or yoga mat, whatever suits your fancy…near the stove, and get cozy.
As you may find looking through different cookbooks, or food blogs, there is great variation between recipes as far as the choice of alcohol used is concerned. Some use white wine, whilst others opt for red. Some add port, sherry, armagnac, or cognac. I have observed that the amounts of wine and liqueurs used can vary quite substantially as well. What I will say on the matter is that tastes differ across regions in France, and some have a preference for using white wine, and others red. In other words, neither one is right or wrong. My father lived most of his life in Paris, where white wine is typically used, whereas my mother lived in the south of France for a decade, where it was always red. I personally have a strong preference for red wine in this soup, and this is my family’s recipe. The addition of other alcohols is a matter of personal taste, although of those listed, I would only discourage the usage of sherry, as I find it to be too sweet in conjunction with the natural sweetness of the onions. I believe that traditional purists will use wine alone. I personally find the soup to be too bland without adding a little hard alcohol—its addition rounds out the flavour and adds a wonderful richness. My favourite is to use armagnac, with cognac being a close second. Both have my stamp of approval, and they may be used interchangeably.
Like most soups, stews, and (cooked) sauces, French onion soup is always significantly better the next day, and the days following. The flavours have at that point had time to meld and develop, and they become stronger. Just like a marinate. Of course when I make it, I will typically eat it the night of, but I always look forward to even more delectable bowls in the days to come. What should be taken from this is that if you are making this for a dinner with guests, or you really want to impress someone, make it a day ahead of time!
Recipe:
Makes 9-12 bowls, depending on serving size
Notes
The recipe for the beef stock used is below the recipe for the French onion soup, and its assembly. Notes pertaining to the stock itself are also below.
I specify the type of salt used, as different salts are more or less salty than others. If you don’t have the same kind of salt used, be mindful of this and adjust accordingly. Generally speaking, the pink Himalayan salt used in the soup is less salty than the fine white sea salt used in the beef stock.
If you don’t use the recipe below for the beef stock, you won’t be able to replicate the exact flavour and salt levels of the soup. I would therefore strongly encourage you to use this recipe. If you choose not to, please try to use the best quality stock possible, and understand that the salt will be off, and adjust accordingly.
If you use a different stock, and it wasn’t made with bone marrow (beef broth bone), add one to the soup as it cooks.
I use gruyère cheese for the soup. Other recipes sometimes call for compté or emmenthal. I don’t love it with emmenthal. I don’t mind it with compté though, so if you can’t find gruyère, compté will work! I would strongly urge you to get your cheese from a proper cheese shop—not from a package at the grocery store. If you are buying gruyère, ask for “raw, unpasteurized cave-aged gruyère from France”. At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth, I must specify that sometimes the equivalent from Switzerland is just as good! But sometimes it’s not. Either will certainly work perfectly for this soup, may that be clear. But if you want to get the best, to try on its own as well just with some bread, I would get French, or if the cheese shop does not have French, you can always ask to try the Swiss gruyère—they will typically let you sample it.
I use a French cooking wine for the red wine. By cooking wine, I simply mean that it doesn’t need to be costly. Use whatever you have, just ensuring that it’s a rich and full-bodied wine.
French Onion Soup
Ingredients
2 kg yellow onion (17 cups), peeled and diced (the weight is after peeling)
130 g/just over 1/2 cup butter
40 g (1/4 cup) all-purpose flour
3 cups red wine
8 cups bouillon *recipe below
4 tsp salt (pink Himalayan) *don’t add more, as the cheese is very salty!
1/4 cup armagnac or cognac
Instructions
Heat butter in a large pot over medium heat, and wait for it to melt and start to bubble.
Add in the onion. Stir often with a wooden spatula, never letting the onion stick for too long and burn, until caramelized. I like to leave the lid on between stirs for the first 10 minutes, as I find this allows the caramelized flavour to more deeply penetrate the onion, and it also lends a softer texture. Remove the lid after those 10 minutes, to allow the onions to release steam and take on colour. This whole process will take on average between 45 minutes and 1 hour, depending on your stove and the pot that you are using. It took me 1 hour for my onions to take on a beautiful caramel colour. The pot that I used isn’t particularly wide, but is tall, and so if yours is wider, and effectively has a larger surface area of the base, it will take less time than me. If you find that after 35 minutes there is still a fair bit of liquid, and the onions still aren’t near caramelizing, increase the heat (to medium-high or high if your stove isn’t as strong). If you do this, just be sure to watch it more carefully, and stir more often. Conversely, if your stovetop is particularly aggressive—and/or your onions aren’t very juicy—and you fear that the onions may burn before they caramelize, feel free to either add butter and/or decrease the heat a little.
Once the onions look caramelized, sift in the flour and stir immediately. Cook, whilst continuously stirring, for 30 seconds.
Add in 1 cup of wine, and stir immediately, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot.
Add 1 more cup of wine. Stir.
Add in 2 cups of the broth. Stir.
Add in 2 more cups of broth. Stir.
Add in 2 more cups of broth. Stir.
Add in 2 more cups of broth. Stir.
Add salt. Stir.
Add lid, reduce heat to low, and cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes or so.
Add in the last cup of wine, stir, cover, and cook for a final 30 minutes.
Add armagnac (or cognac), stir, and your soup is ready. [If you are a taster like me, you may try the soup and think that it needs another pinch of salt. Restrain yourself from adding more in! The gruyère is very salty, and if you make the soup perfectly salted, the finished product will be inedible. Trust me on this.] Proceed with the remaining assembly steps.
Final Components
Ingredients
1-2 baguettes (depending on how many people you’re feeding—use 3-4 slices/bowl)
Several cloves of garlic
Gruyère cheese, 2 handfuls grated/bowl (*see notes above)
Assembly
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cut baguette into slices on a diagonal (about 2.5 cm in thickness).
Toast the bread until golden and crispy.
Generously rub garlic onto the bread slices, on both sides (Do not skip this step! The flavour is vital to the soup!).
Grate cheese, using a coarse (large) grater.
Take out an oven-safe soup bowl, or a large ramekin of a similar size.
Pace 1-2 slices—depending on how hungry you are—of bread in the bowl (you can rip them in if you’d prefer to make it easier to eat). Pour 2 ladles of soup into the bowl. Next, sprinkle in a small handful of cheese (about 1/3 cup). Top with 2 more slices of bread, enough soup to almost fill the bowl (for me this was another 2 ladles), and this time a larger handful of cheese. The cheese should be about in line with the rim of the bowl.
Place bowl(s) on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (in case the cheese bubbles over).
Bake for 5 minutes.
Increase heat to broil and bake for a further 3-4 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden in colour.
Serve, taking care to place bowls on little towelettes or something equivalent, as they will be piping hot from the oven. Pair with a nice glass of French red wine, and extra toasted garlic baguette slices for a nice crunch if you’d like.
Enjoy!
Beef Broth
Makes 2800 ml of broth
Notes
Prime rib bones with the meat still attached are used for the stock, along with marrow bones. It’s vital to include meat in addition to the bones, for flavour (hence the former). Please feel free to substitute whatever cuts of beef you have on hand, or can get your hands on. Simply ensure that you don’t use less than what the recipe calls for in weight, as the stock wouldn’t be flavourful enough otherwise. Financial considerations may also influence your choice here, so use whatever you are comfortable buying. My butcher suggested the prime rib bones, as they are more cost effective than some alternatives; the 3 lbs costed me about 20$ CAD, however they become the main for a family meal in and of themselves, which make them worth it for me. The ribs become gorgeously tender in the stock, which simmers for 5 hours, and they quite literally fall off the bone once ready. I recommend serving the ribs with the sauce overtop, paired with green beans and roasted cubed potatoes, as an idea, but enjoy them in whatever way you like!
I specify the type of salt used, as different salts are more or less salty than others. If you don’t have the same kind of salt used, be mindful of this and adjust accordingly. Generally speaking, the fine white sea salt used in the beef stock is more salty than the pink Himalayan salt used in the sauce.
The garlic and tomato paste are not individually perceivable flavours. I highlight this in particular, as for a neutral beef broth, one doesn’t want it to taste of garlic or tomato, as this wouldn’t be very versatile to be used in a wide array of recipes. They rather serve to add a certain depth of flavour to the broth, but you won’t taste them.
Roasting the ingredients before using them in the stock will create a considerably more flavourful and savoury end product.
You will have 800 ml of stock left after making the soup. Why not make a beautiful French Cognac, Red Wine & Mushroom Cream Sauce next? That recipe can be found here, and calls for 400 ml of it.
Ingredients
500 g yellow onion (4 small for me), unpeeled, cut into quarters
315 g carrot (3 medium for me), unpeeled, cut into chunks (cylinders ~3cm long)
365 g leek (1 large for me), roots cut off, in large chunks (cylinders ~5cm long)
240 g celery (2 large stalks for me), in large chunks
150 g cremini mushrooms (6 for me), whole
1/2 of an average sized head of garlic (30 g), unpeeled and left intact
1/2 cup olive oil
3 lbs beef prime rib bones, with meat still attached *see notes
3 lbs beef marrow bones
1/4 cup tomato paste
30 g fresh parsley, whole stems (7 large for me)
4 g fresh thyme (3 large sprigs for me)
5 medium dried bay leaves
1 tbsp black peppercorns, whole
4 L cold water
1 tbsp + 1/2 + 1/8 tsp fine white sea salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, and ensure that one oven rack is positioned in the middle, and another is positioned below it.
In a large bowl, combine the onion, carrot, leek, celery, mushrooms, garlic, and 1/4 cup of the olive oil, using your hands. Pour the contents onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Set aside.
In the now empty bowl, add in the the prime rib bones and marrow bones. Pour over the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil, and the tomato paste. Massage the oil and paste into the beef (coat it). On a second baking tray lined with parchment paper, place a full-sized cooling rack, or several small ones. The purpose of this is to allow for full air flow to all sides of the beef as it roasts. Place the ribs and marrow bones on top of the rack(s).
Put the tray containing the beef on the middle rack in the oven, and the vegetable tray on the lower rack. Roast for 25 minutes, or until the contents begin to brown. After the 25 minutes, take both trays out of the oven. Stir the veggies, and flip the beef. Put the trays back into the oven for a further 10 minutes, or until the contents look properly browned. Remove from oven.
Pour the roasted vegetables, including their juices, into a large stock pot. Using tongs, add in the ribs and marrow bones, including any bits that may have fallen off the bone. Do not add in the beef fat which will be in liquid for at the bottom of your pan. Discard the fat (unless you want to save it for something, but I don’t care for it personally). Add in the remaining ingredients, except for the salt.
Bring the stock to a boil over high heat, uncovered.
Reduce heat to medium low, but closer to low, cover, and simmer for 2.5 hours. After the 2.5 hours, stir in the salt. Cover again, and simmer for 2.5 hours more.
The stock is ready at this point. Remove the ribs and set aside. All of the other solids (including the vegetables, marrow bones, and aromatics) may be discarded. I find the easiest way to do this is to fish out the ribs using tongs, and then to set a large colander in a large bowl, and pour the stock into it, to remove the solids. You may need to do this in a couple of rounds. I then like to pass the broth through a fine-meshed strainer, to make it extra smooth. Again, set this in a large bowl to catch the broth.
Time allowing, allow the broth to come to room temperature, and then cool it in the fridge. This will cause the beef fat to solidify on the surface of the broth. Once you see this tangible layer of fat, remove it with a spoon and discard. Your broth, if fully cold from the fridge, is likely to be gelatinous—don’t worry, this is normal. Heat it up again, and it will turn back into a liquid. Always measure broth in liquid form. The broth is now perfect and ready to use.
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These recipes sound delicious!