The Art of Running in the Rain

The other night I made French Onion Soup and man oh man was it aaamazing (if I do say so myself).  I wanted to share with you all the order of operations and the edible images (well some of them) that I captured.  I’m waiting until after the wedding (25 days!!) to purchase myself a nice camera.  I’m gonna take that thing all over Japan, and then share all the beautiful images with you!  But I digress.  I used Tyler Florence’s recipe because it was the first one that popped up on my google search which sounded delicious, wooow that sounded super lazy.  Well let me tell you, making this recipe was anything but lazy.

So you start by melting a stick of butter in a large pot:

After that you add onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper. Cook for roughly 25 minutes, or until onions look all caramelized and shiz.

I’m gonna tell you the honest to goodness truth, I sometimes don’t use red onions because I don’t think they’re very pretty.  This time I used them because it was all I had, and honestly, who cares?

After this you add red wine and bring it to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook until all the liquid is gone, or about 5 minutes.

Then remove the bay leaves.

Dust the onions in flour and give them a stir (yup that’s Dave’s hand, he’s a good sous chef).  This is my first time adding flour, and I think it really made an amazing difference.

Turn the heat down to low and cook for 10 minutes to cook off the raw flour taste.

Now add the ‘better than bouillon’ fake beef broth bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes and add salt and pepper to taste.

Now when it’s time to eat preheat the broiler.  I like to place a slice of french bread on top of the soup (in an oven safe bowl) and add a slice of provolone.  Then place in the oven for 3-5 minutes.

I was really happy with how it turned out.

Another nice thing about this soup is that it tastes just as good without the bread and cheese and is roughly 80 calories per cup!

Here’s the ingredients you’ll need:

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
Slice of provolone

Be well.