French · Soup
Soupe à l'Oignon
- Intermediate
- 1 h 30 m
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, char used as punctuation, trailing gentle sweetness.
Ingredients
- 1kg yellow onions, thinly sliced
- 60g butter
- 1 tbsp flour
- 150ml dry white wine
- 1.5L beef stock
- Baguette, Gruyère
- Thyme
The skills inside
Deglazing & pan saucesCaramelizing onionsThe broiler: heat from above
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Cook onions in butter over medium-low with a pinch of salt 45–60 min to deep mahogany. 60 min
- Stir in flour; deglaze with wine, add stock and thyme; simmer 20 min. 20 min
- Ladle into ovenproof bowls; top with toasted baguette and a blanket of Gruyère.
- Broil until molten and bronzed.
How it should come out
- A spoonful lifted from any depth of the pot shows mahogany strands throughout, with no pale or yellow ones hiding near the top.
- The kilo of raw onions has collapsed to roughly a fifth of its volume: a jammy tangle with no rings still holding their shape.
- Broth is dark and clean-bodied, just filming the back of a spoon; never gluey, never pale, and with no raw-flour taste.
- The Gruyère lid is bronzed and blistered, sealed to the rim of the bowl, and lifts off in one sheet with the crouton beneath it still holding under spoon pressure rather than dissolved to mush.
- Sweet first, beef-savoury behind it, and no bitterness in the finish: a scorched edge at the back of the throat is the tell that the hour was rushed.
Where it goes wrong The heat was pushed to save the hour, so the onions carry black scorched shreds around pale undercooked centres and the finished bowl tastes bitter where it should taste sweet.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Syrah (northern Rhône) or Nebbiolo
- Also Right
- The braising wine itself, better bottle
- From the Taps
- Belgian dubbel
- Zero-Proof
- Beet & blackcurrant shrub
Long-cooked beef trades bite for depth: savory, structured reds echo the pot; and pouring the braise’s own region is law.
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