"The first time I made French Onion soup it took me over 4 hours to caramelize the onions. I have no idea how it could have taken so long beyond inexperience. Since I now know how to caramelized onions this recipe is much quicker. The original recipe called for 5 med onions, and 48 oz. beef stock. I initially used 4 large onions & 60.5 oz. Beef stock but felt it need more broth and less onions."
When I read this I still couldn't imagine what I was doing cooking onions for 4 hours but after seeing Clinton Kelley make it on The Chew I decided to give it another try using his recipe since I wasn't sure if my recipe was perfect yet. I vaguely remember it tasting a bit beefy and I couldn't ever remember this taste when I have had a great bowl out at a restaurant.
So on 1/28/2014 I tried Clinton's recipe for French Onion Soup. I stayed pretty close to the recipe but instead of chicken broth I used homemade stock. Of the two frozen bags of homemade stock one was my most recent endeavor so it was darker. It was darker because I added onions, carrots and spices and cooked it longer to develop the flavors. The other was more like broth in color since I just boiled the caucus from my rotisserie chicken but added nothing extra. Anyways Clinton's recipe was good but it didn't hit the mark for me. It was a bit pink/burgundy in color which was a turn off. It wasn't the dark brown color depicted on the website. I also felt it didn't have enough onions and was too brothy which is funny since my first comment on my own recipe was that it had too many onions and not enough broth. My pallet has grown quite a bit over the years so I do understand why I now feel differently. I want more onions, a bit thicker and more flavor. What I did forget from Clinton's recipe was the flour which should create the start of a roux and give me a bit of thickness to the broth.
Even with the changes I will incorporate into my recipe from Clinton's, I still think it needs more flavor. My search and testing continues.
My next attempt will go back to beef broth and use less (32 oz.) of it, add 1 T. flour, 1/4 t. more pepper, 1 onions and thyme and maybe some Madeira or sherry at the end. I will also look up more recipes to see if there is any additional ingredients I could add. Pictured here is broiling the bread in the crock and then on a cookie sheet and placed in the soup after.
FRENCH ONION SOUP
Caramelize Onions:
2 T. butter
2 T. EVOO
4 large onions (2 lbs), cut in half, sliced thin rings
8 (4" long) sprigs of thyme, about 32" total
2 bay leaves
1 t. Kosher salt
¼ t. coarse black pepper
1 T. flour
Soup:
60.5 oz. or 32 oz. beef stock
Topping:
¼ C. Gruyere cheese, grated
-French bread
Peal and cut onions in half. Slice halves into thin slices. Melt butter with a drizzle of EVOO in a large stock pot. Add onions, reduce heat to low, cover and cook 20 minutes. Stir, cook an additional 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes until dark golden brown. Add 1 T. flour, cook 2 minutes. Add stock and pepper, stir. Simmer approximately 20 minutes to blend flavors. Slice French bread. Top with cheese. place on a foil lined cookie sheet and broil till cheese melts. Ladle soup into crock. Top with bread. Serve.
Note: The easiest way to slice thin onions is to use a mandolin. If you have oven safe crocks you can broil the bread in the soup but I like a crispy bottom.
Note: Shown here I added the bread to the soup and then broiled it. In the following picture I broiled the bread on a cookie sheet. What I liked more about it on the cookie sheet was that the bottom of the bread also toasted so it wasn't as soggy. Problem with this however is that it can be harder to eat. You choose.
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