French Onion Soup

It is still winter in Chicago and a soup is always welcome at my house. This traditional French soup is an inexpensive way to give your family a treat and warm them up after a cold winter day. This is a soup with very simple ingredients, but if you follow my advice you can have one of the best French onion soups. I have two secrets when making French onion soup. The first one is browning the beef bones in the oven before making the beef stock. By browning the bones first, you will get a dark broth with a robust flavor, perfect for the soup. The second one is to caramelize your onions with butter. You will have to be patient while caramelizing the onions, it takes time (about 1/2 hour) but it gives your soup a great sweet flavor, dark color and consistency. You can make the broth and caramelize your onions ahead of time and when its time to serve you will only have to arrange the soup in the individual bowls, top it with toasted bread and gruyere cheese and broil it.

FRENCH ONION SOUP

Serves 4

For the beef stock:
2 and 1/2 lbs. beef bones
2 carrots (chopped)
1 celery stick (chopped)
1 onion (quartered)
4 quarts of water

For the soup:
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large onions (sliced)
1/2 cup of dry white wine
2 teaspoons of all purpose flour
4 cups of beef stock
8 slices of toasted bread
1 cup grated gruyere cheese

Start by making the beef broth: Preheat oven to 500ºF; place beef bones in an oven-safe pan and bake for 15 minutes or until well browned.
Transfer browned beef bones to a large pot and add carrots, onion, celery and water. Bring to a boil and cook covered over medium heat for one hour.
Discard beef bones and vegetables and strain the broth through a fine mesh sieve. If you refrigerate your broth the fat will solidify at the top, you can then remove the fat and will have a fat-free broth.

Browned beef bones

Ingredients for beef stock

Continue by caramelizing the onions: In a Dutch oven melt the butter with the olive oil and add onions. Cook the onions over medium heat stirring occasionally until very soft and caramelized (about 35 minutes).

Caramelized onions

Add dry white wine to deglaze the pan and cook over medium heat until wine has been absorbed (about 1-2 minutes).

Add flour, stir and cook for another minute.  Add 4 cups of beef stock and bring to a boil, cook for 5 minutes over medium-low heat. Season with salt and lots of fresh ground pepper.

Prepare 4 individual bowls:

1. Fill with onions-broth mixture
2. Add 2 slices of toasted bread to each bowl
3. Top with grated gruyere cheese
4. Preheat oven to broil and cook a couple of minutes until cheese has melted and browned.

Enjoy!