french onion soup

After the demo day today, I ate a substantial snack before going grocery shopping. I was going to post it but I think dinner deserves it's own post. All by itself. It was that. good. Epic, really!


Apparently if one buys one's boyfriend french onion soup crocks for one's boyfriend's birthday, one is expected to make use of said french onion soup crocks by making... french onion soup! Fine by me!!! I've never made french onion soup before, I've only really had it 2-3 times tops, but I'm game for just about anything (except macarons, they scare me... for now!)


I used this Tyler Florence French Onion Soup recipe. Why did I choose this recipe? It uses one stick of butter. End of discussion. While I will post plenty of healthy/ healthified recipes, for some things (French food being one) GO BIG OR GO HOME!!!























Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 4 onions, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
• 3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 quarts beef broth
• 1 baguette, sliced
• 1/2 pound grated Gruyere

Directions

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the broiler. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle the slices with the Gruyere and broil until bubbly and golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes.

Ladle the soup in bowls and float several of the Gruyere croutons on top.

Alternative method: Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

This recipe came out AMAZINGGGGG!!! The onions took about an hour to caramelize as opposed to 25 minutes as stated in the recipe. Other than that, everything went swimmingly! The soup was tasty and I was glad it used dry red wine as opposed to sherry since I wasn't about to buy sherry just for one recipe. This tasted pretty spot on and I made it extra cheese :):):) 


Everyone loved it and cleaned their bowl! This makes about 6 servings but leftovers are easy peasy, just warm up the soup, spoon into a soup crock, place fresh bread slices and grated cheese on top and broil until cheese is bubbly.