Home Made French Onion Soup

We woke up this morning to a real change in the weather, cold, windy and the rain!  Oh my.....

I had a huge sack of onions, so on a whim, decided to make French Onion Soup.  Easy, comforting and of course, the most important thing, it is simply delicious.  It is a real winter warmer and the kids all love it as well.

Now if I was a real chef, I would have wiped the onion of the bowl before presenting!!!

You will need:

1) Onions about a kilo (I used 15 regular sized ones)

2) Good beef stock (preferably homemade but I only had chicken in the freezer so that had to do!) about a pint and a half

3) 2 tablespoons of butter 

4) 2 glugs of olive oil

5) 3 garlic cloves

6) Glass of white wine optional (I always freeze leftover wine into an ice cube tray and use these for when wine is needed!)

7) French baguette (again, I improvised as only had mini ones)

8) A slab of Gruyere cheese

9) A teaspoon of caster sugar

Method:

1) Melt the butter and olive oil in a heavy bottomed (*ahem*) pan and once this is hot,add your sliced onions and sugar.   Push around the pan every so often, until the onions start to brown.  This is the starting point of the caramelisation process and all those lovely brown bits will be used to darken your soup.  Once this process starts, turn the heat RIGHT DOWN and leave to gently simmer for around an hour.

2) While this process is happening, take your baguette and slice into 1 inch slices and bake in a pre heated oven for around 20-25mins on gas mark 6 until golden.  

3) Once your onions are caramelised and brown and sticky, add the stock and wine and scrap the pan to make good use of the caramelised onions, then turn down the heat and gently simmer with the lid of for about an hour.

4) Once the soup is cooked, you need to either put into the soup bowls and then add a crouton smothered in Gruyere cheese or (and in my opinion, this is MUCH easier) add the croutons to your original pan and then grate the cheese all over the pan.  Stick under a preheated grill until the cheese has melted.

5) Serve into individual bowls and enjoy!!!

Peace and Love

S.A.M xx