The Art of Classic French Onion Soup: A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to cooking, there's no substitute for using high-quality ingredients and mastering classic techniques. One such dish that embodies these principles is French onion soup. This timeless recipe has been perfected over centuries, and with the right guidance, anyone can create a truly exceptional version.

To start, we need to prepare our onions. I like to use a large quantity of onions because they have a ton of water content, which will cook down during the process. It's essential to salt the onions at the beginning, as this helps to bring out their natural sweetness and caramelizes them evenly. Most recipes advise against covering the onions, but I prefer to add a little cover to allow for steaming before removing it to let the onions caramelize further.

Next, we need to add aromatics like thyme sprigs to enhance the flavor. Covering the pot allows the steam to start cooking down the onions, which takes about 20 minutes. Continuous stirring ensures that there's no sticking to the bottom of the pan. We want a gentle simmer on low heat until the onions have reduced by three-quarters and started caramelizing.

Once the onions are nearly done, I add a small amount of sugar to aid in browning and salt to balance out the flavors. This is crucial for achieving an even caramelization across the onions. It's also essential to stir the onions regularly to prevent them from sticking to the pan.

Now it's time to introduce the flour, which will thicken the soup slightly. Always cook out the flour thoroughly before adding it to the pot, as raw flour can be bitter and unpleasantly textured. Next, we add cognac and dry white wine to deglaze the pan, followed by beef broth. This might seem like a simple recipe, but the quality of each ingredient makes all the difference.

As we bring the soup to a simmer, we need to allow it to cook slowly. A medium heat setting is perfect for this stage, with the lid covered loosely to prevent too much evaporation. We want to concentrate the flavors without losing the delicate balance of our dish. After 90 minutes of gentle simmering, we can begin building the soup.

To assemble our French onion soup, I remove the thyme stems and proceed with adding all the cheese that can fit on top of the bread. The key is to cover the bread evenly, as it will broil later and we want everything to be golden brown. Next, we add the gruyère, which pulls beautifully when heated.

Finally, we're ready to serve our French onion soup. As it emerges from the oven, the bread gets nicely charred, and the cheese is creamy with a tangy undertone. This classic recipe may seem straightforward, but mastering the techniques and quality of ingredients will elevate it to new heights. With patience, attention to detail, and a bit of flair, you'll be creating exquisite French onion soup that's sure to delight even the most discerning palates.

Note: The article is based on the provided transcription, without any changes or condensing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone i'm chef antonio lafasso i am the head judge of the julia child challenge and today i'm going to be showing you how to make the classic iconic french onion soup what i love so much about julia child's teachings are this fundamental foundational cooking and soup is one of those recipes i always love to say that great cooks and great chefs really take the time to develop flavor in a soup and this is a recipe that takes a little bit longer but i advocate for those recipes because there's a lot of pride and a lot of learning techniques that go into making recipes that sometimes take a little bit longer what i love so much about this recipe is that very very simple and very few ingredients but it's all about technique and it's all about kind of just taking your time in the kitchen just enjoy the process of cooking because it's about the care and the technique that's going to go into caramelizing these onions which is the foundation of this iconic soup okay so let's get into caramelizing onions so i've got a dutch oven i'm just going to heat on a medium to start and i'm going to lower it because the onions are going to go low and slow i'm going to take some unsalted butter and oil so we're going to just kind of let that melt and it doesn't need to go all the way the butter is going to melt at its own pace and that's fine and we're just going to dump in all of those onions now this looks like a lot of onions but think about this onions have a ton of water and this is going to cook down i like to salt at the very beginning a lot of recipes will tell you and in in classic caramelization of onions they would say don't cover it don't steam the onion okay you want this to do it on its own i like to give it a little bit of a cover so that it can steam and then i'll pull the cover off and then allow the onions to caramelize more on their own so it's just a little trick to have the process go a little bit faster because if you just start these onions here and let them go low and slow it does take about 45 minutes if we cover it it's probably going to take about 20. now what i'm going to do is add a couple of sprigs of thyme so i'm just going to cover this and let it cook for about 20 minutes i'm going to continuously stir it so that there's no sticking to the bottom i'm going to have it on a low to slightly medium heat but i want to get that steam started and then we'll get into the caramelization all right so i've taken the lid off of the onions you can see they've almost reduced in volume by three quarters the onions are nice and soft they're starting to get a little bit of caramelization happening i'm going to add a little bit of sugar now just kind of helps the browning process a little bit more salt in order to really have the caramelization be even over all the onions as it gets to the point where it starts to really brown you want to move the onions around so that they are equally caramelized all right the onions are exactly where we want them they are beautifully caramelized evenly caramelized and now we can get into adding a little bit of flour and the flour is just going to thicken the soup just a tad and i'm just gonna give the flour a second to touch the heat of the pan okay really really important to always cook out flour because you can taste raw flour if it doesn't come in contact with a little bit of fat and some heat we're going to add some cognac and a dry white wine and then we have the beef broth a super super simple soup but all of the right ingredients done well technique the classics and you've got a beautiful soup so i'm going to turn this up to a medium we're going to let it simmer we're just going to cover this loosely we're going to allow the water to evaporate okay so that there is a concentration of the soup that's going to happen but not so much to where the entire lid is off we want this process to be low and slow so just enough for there to be the evaporation of water it happens too quickly when you have the entire top off okay so the soup has been cooking for about 90 minutes it is now time to build the soups i want to remove those stems of thyme that were in there this is where the question comes right how much cheese do you put into your french onion soup if you're someone like me i am like all the cheese that can fit so so good i can smell the thyme that really beautiful earthy thyme the beef broth oh so so so good you look at those onions right at the very very beginning so many onions and now they're just these gorgeous caramelized little soft strings of sweetness i've got bread already toasted off toast them very very well it'll really help with the sturdiness and i kind of like to do a little two pieces of bread the bread and the cheese are kind of my favorite it's going to sit on top it's going to absorb we want it to then we've got the gruyere you want all the bread covered here because this is going to broil and you really want to make sure that the bread is covered so that doesn't get too dark now we're going to broil these these are warm they came right out of the broiler look at that what i like to do right is kind of push that bread the bread got nice and charred that's the cheese pull that we're talking about look at that the payoff is that beautiful cheese as it pulls it's so creamy there's a great sort of sourness and funkiness to the gruyere that works so well with the sweetness of those onions i'm going in for another bite thanks everyone for watching i hope you enjoyed this recipe but more importantly i hope that you embrace the fundamentals of cooking bringing it back to the classics and enjoying the classics just like julia did youhey everyone i'm chef antonio lafasso i am the head judge of the julia child challenge and today i'm going to be showing you how to make the classic iconic french onion soup what i love so much about julia child's teachings are this fundamental foundational cooking and soup is one of those recipes i always love to say that great cooks and great chefs really take the time to develop flavor in a soup and this is a recipe that takes a little bit longer but i advocate for those recipes because there's a lot of pride and a lot of learning techniques that go into making recipes that sometimes take a little bit longer what i love so much about this recipe is that very very simple and very few ingredients but it's all about technique and it's all about kind of just taking your time in the kitchen just enjoy the process of cooking because it's about the care and the technique that's going to go into caramelizing these onions which is the foundation of this iconic soup okay so let's get into caramelizing onions so i've got a dutch oven i'm just going to heat on a medium to start and i'm going to lower it because the onions are going to go low and slow i'm going to take some unsalted butter and oil so we're going to just kind of let that melt and it doesn't need to go all the way the butter is going to melt at its own pace and that's fine and we're just going to dump in all of those onions now this looks like a lot of onions but think about this onions have a ton of water and this is going to cook down i like to salt at the very beginning a lot of recipes will tell you and in in classic caramelization of onions they would say don't cover it don't steam the onion okay you want this to do it on its own i like to give it a little bit of a cover so that it can steam and then i'll pull the cover off and then allow the onions to caramelize more on their own so it's just a little trick to have the process go a little bit faster because if you just start these onions here and let them go low and slow it does take about 45 minutes if we cover it it's probably going to take about 20. now what i'm going to do is add a couple of sprigs of thyme so i'm just going to cover this and let it cook for about 20 minutes i'm going to continuously stir it so that there's no sticking to the bottom i'm going to have it on a low to slightly medium heat but i want to get that steam started and then we'll get into the caramelization all right so i've taken the lid off of the onions you can see they've almost reduced in volume by three quarters the onions are nice and soft they're starting to get a little bit of caramelization happening i'm going to add a little bit of sugar now just kind of helps the browning process a little bit more salt in order to really have the caramelization be even over all the onions as it gets to the point where it starts to really brown you want to move the onions around so that they are equally caramelized all right the onions are exactly where we want them they are beautifully caramelized evenly caramelized and now we can get into adding a little bit of flour and the flour is just going to thicken the soup just a tad and i'm just gonna give the flour a second to touch the heat of the pan okay really really important to always cook out flour because you can taste raw flour if it doesn't come in contact with a little bit of fat and some heat we're going to add some cognac and a dry white wine and then we have the beef broth a super super simple soup but all of the right ingredients done well technique the classics and you've got a beautiful soup so i'm going to turn this up to a medium we're going to let it simmer we're just going to cover this loosely we're going to allow the water to evaporate okay so that there is a concentration of the soup that's going to happen but not so much to where the entire lid is off we want this process to be low and slow so just enough for there to be the evaporation of water it happens too quickly when you have the entire top off okay so the soup has been cooking for about 90 minutes it is now time to build the soups i want to remove those stems of thyme that were in there this is where the question comes right how much cheese do you put into your french onion soup if you're someone like me i am like all the cheese that can fit so so good i can smell the thyme that really beautiful earthy thyme the beef broth oh so so so good you look at those onions right at the very very beginning so many onions and now they're just these gorgeous caramelized little soft strings of sweetness i've got bread already toasted off toast them very very well it'll really help with the sturdiness and i kind of like to do a little two pieces of bread the bread and the cheese are kind of my favorite it's going to sit on top it's going to absorb we want it to then we've got the gruyere you want all the bread covered here because this is going to broil and you really want to make sure that the bread is covered so that doesn't get too dark now we're going to broil these these are warm they came right out of the broiler look at that what i like to do right is kind of push that bread the bread got nice and charred that's the cheese pull that we're talking about look at that the payoff is that beautiful cheese as it pulls it's so creamy there's a great sort of sourness and funkiness to the gruyere that works so well with the sweetness of those onions i'm going in for another bite thanks everyone for watching i hope you enjoyed this recipe but more importantly i hope that you embrace the fundamentals of cooking bringing it back to the classics and enjoying the classics just like julia did you\n"