French Onion Soup
The day before I made a stock with soup bones first. I
put the bones with some quartered onions, thickly sliced carrots and a couple of
stalks of celery also thickly sliced into the oven on a baking tray at 230C for 30 mins.
Turn the bones at least once during cooking. Drain off the fat and put all
into a saucepan with extra parsnip chopped, a large cubed potato, couple of
crushed cloves of garlic, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Simmer for at
least a couple of hours until the bones are thoroughly cooked then drain and set
aside the liquid to cool.
When cool remove the fat and use the stock for
the following recipe.
You can of course skip
this step if you have your own stock but this was an extra special flavour.
Serves 6
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter cut into pieces
6 large onions (about 2 kg), halved and cut 1/4-inch-thick slices
salt
2 cups water
1/2 cup dry sherry
6 cups of stock
6 sprigs fresh thyme tied
1 bay leaf
Ground black pepper
1 small baguette, cut into 1/2-inch slices
2 1/2 cups grated Gruyere cheese
Method:
Put the onions into a glass dish with butter and salt and microwave on high until the onions are very soft.
(This is cheating a bit as they should be cooked in the oven but I find this
very slow!)
Remove from the dish and put all (liquid included) into a heavy based large saucepan, cook slowly until the liquid
evaporates and the onions have browned. Add a 1/4 of a cup of water scraping the bottom
of the pan and repeat process a couple of times until the onions are a dark brown but not burnt.
Stir in the sherry and allow to evaporate as well.
Add the stock and seasoning and allow to simmer for about 30 mins stirring and
scraping the bottom of the saucepan well .
Remove the herbs and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile toast the slices of baguette in the oven.
When ready to serve put the hot soup into large bowls. Place 2 slices of baguette on top
(not overlapping)
and sprinkle with the cheese, put under the grill and lightly brown the cheese.
Allow to cool slightly before serving.