French Onion Soup

Makes: Enough for 4
Takes: 3 hours
Bakes: No time at all

Ingredients

• 1 kg brown onions (unpeeled weight)
• 40g butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 100ml Sherry
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 800ml beef stock
• 4-8 slices of French stick

• 150g gruyere

  1. Peel, top and tail the onions and cut into slivers. Melt the butter with the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pan. Put the onions in the pan, and stir so that everything gets a good coating of the butter. Knock the heat down as low as you possibly can and let the onions begin to cook.
  2. Stir the onions every 5-10 minutes. After 30 minutes they should be completely soft, translucent but uncoloured. Keep stirring every 10 minutes or so: the onions will begin to take on colour and collapse. Keep cooking and stirring until they are a deep, dark brown. If, as you stir the onions, they stick to your pan, pour in just a little water, scraping at the sticky patch until it dissolves.
  3. Once the onions have darkened, stir the two tablespoons of flour into the onions, and cook for a couple of minutes until the flour sizzles gently. Add the vinegar, and then the sherry, and scrape thoroughly at the bottom of the pan, picking up any bits that have stuck there. Pour in the beef stock and bring up to a simmer, cooking uncovered for 15 minutes. Taste for seasoning and adjust with a little salt or vinegar if needed; the amount will depend on your onions and your stock, so use your judgement.
  4. While the soup is simmering, heat up the grill. Toast the French bread lightly either in a toaster or under the heating grill. Ladle the hot soup into ovenproof serving bowls or one large ovenproof dish, then cover with the toast and grate (very) generously with the cheese. Don’t worry if a lot of cheese misses the bread and goes straight to the soup, this is all to the good: you really want to cover the surface of the bowl with cheese.
  5. Grill until the cheese bubbles and serve straight away, being careful not to burn yourself or your diners on the hot bowls or serving dish.

Note So I make no bones about this recipe: to make a French onion soup properly, you need to cook the onions for two-three hours. I know, it’s a horribly long time. And although you don’t need to hover over the stove for every moment, you do need to be in the vicinity, ready to stir and shove every 10 minutes or so. This isn’t a hands-off dish. If you’re clockwatching, this probably isn’t the soup for you; come back to it when you have a lazy Saturday morning and some telly to catch up on.