French onion soup
"just because something's authentic, it doesn't make it the best choice" Felicity Cloake
David requested French onion soup for his special meal and I was going to write it up before we had it, but Wix wasn't working yesterday, so I am writing it today, after the event. Which is just as well really because it gives me another perspective on this classic. Something so simple - just onions, water, bread and cheese in its simplest form - is really not that simple after all. Of course.
Everything about this classic dish works for me – its innate frugality, everyday ingredients and lack of pretension." Nigel Slater
Well he might think this, but at the end of it all I'm not so sure. And as to Felicity Cloake's comment at the top of the page, and after all my research, I actually ended up using Delia's recipe which is reasonably authentic, but not quite. Oh dear, she uses garlic! Otherwise though it is pretty much how the majority of the 'authentic' recipes go.
And mine didn't look as brown as hers - more about that in a minute.
There are, of course, lots of different French onion soups. The basic onion soup is veritably a soup of the poor, being simply onions - plentiful and cheap - cooked in water and probably eaten with bread. But there are endless onion soups - with different liquids, different additional ingredients, even different onions. And the very basic soup dates back to classical times.
As to the origins of the soup we know as French, the best summary I found was by Emily Monaco on the Vice website. The legend - well two associated legends are as follows.
Version number one - after a hard day's hunting Louis XV got back to his hunting lodge, only to find there was only champagne, onions and bread and cheese in the cupboard. And so he invented the soup. This is Louis XV on the left. Genius chef that he was. Below is one of his hunting lodges - the chateau of St. Hubert.
The legend is ridiculous is it not? Do you see that man cooking soup? He probably couldn't even find his way to the kitchen. The hunting lodge looks almost as big as Versailles. Version number two - Louis XV's father-in-law - King Stanislas of Poland was served this soup somewhere, loved it, got the recipe from the chef and took it to Louis XV. Rather more plausible.
However, there is also the idea that this soup originated in Les Halles - the main wholesale market of Paris.
Somebody there hit upon the idea of boosting the basic peasant onion soup by grating cheese on bread or toast and slapping it all under the grill. And Les Halles is certainly the place that is famous for this soup. Les Halles is no longer there - like many city wholesale markets it was moved out to the suburbs late last century. Late enough for Robert Carrier to have experienced it though and to rhapsodise about its soup.
"French onion soup spells Paris in its most romantic mood , an aromatic vision of Les Halles at four in the morning, busy crowded streets filled with the clamorous cries of an awakening city, where home-returning revellers mingle with hard-working marketmen for their one communal meal of the day." Robert Carrier
I'm not sure why he says romantic really, because on the one hand you have the exhausted market workers who barely earn enough to keep them alive probably
and on the other hand you have drunken aristocrats drinking the soup because it was supposedly a good hangover cure. Nothing romantic about being either drunk or hungover. And isn't it interesting that this same mix of the rich and the poor is reflected in the two different sources for its origins - a king and muscled porters in a market?
But it is seen as a romantic French thing - like accordion music and the Eiffel Tower. Quintessentially French, and certainly on most French restaurant menus here and the remaining restaurants in the Les Halles precinct in Paris. The version shown on the left is from the bistro Les Pieds de Cochon which has been there for a very long time. History becomes good tourism.
I have several 'French' cookbooks and, interestingly, not one of them has a recipe for French onion soup. Not even Elizabeth David. But then she is not a fan and she also implies that it's not really French.
"The onion soup generally regarded as 'French', with sodden bread, strings of cheese, and half-cooked onion, floating about in it, seems to me a good deal overrated and rather indigestible." Elizabeth David
She may be right about the sodden bread though. I followed Delia's instructions to the letter here. I toasted the bread in the oven until really crisp and golden, and I don't think I pushed it down very far into the soup - but of course it soaked up the soup and was indeed rather sodden.
Donna Hay, Nigel Slater's Three Onion Soup and a version from Gourmet Traveller serve the toast and cheese alongside rather than on top. Maybe that's the way to go.
Maybe it's because it has become such a touristy thing that 'authentic' French cookbooks and French cooks ignore it. I don't think it's because it's a food of the poor. There are lots of peasant dishes that are now very highly regarded.
So how do you make French onion soup? Well let's go back to Robert Carrier who sums up its evolution and its versatility.
"French onion soup is nothing if not adaptable. Take a few onions, a little water or a little stock, a slice or two of toasted bread and a sprinkling of grated cheese, and you have a deliciously warming and inexpensive soup. Add a little dry white wine, a glass of champagne, or a dash or two of brandy, and you have a soup fit for the gods.” Robert Carrier
This is his recipe from Great Dishes of the World and it sounds pretty simple. I have made it in the past and it is pretty good.
soupe à l’oignon
24 small white onions, 4 tbs butter, sugar, 1.5 litres beef stock, 110ml cognac, salt and freshly ground black pepper, 4-6 rounds toasted French bread, grated Gruyère cheese.
Peel and slice onions thinly. Heat butter in a large saucepan with a little sugar, add the onion rings and cook them very, very gently over a low flame, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the rings are an even golden brown. Add beef stock gradually, stirring constantly until the soup begins to boil. Then lower the heat, cover the pan, and simmer gently for about 1 hour.
Just before serving, add cognac and salt and pepper, and serve in a heated soup tureen or in individual serving bowls, each one containing toasted butttered rounds of French bread heaped with grated Gruyère cheese.
Alternatively, pile an oven-proof earthenware dish high with slices of oven-toasted French bread; cover each layer with freshly-grated Gruyère cheese; fill the bowl with soup. Place it in the oven until the bowl is smoking hot, golden with melted cheese and toasted bread and you have soup à l’oignon gratinée as is served in Les Halles.
But let me tell you it's not that simple. The real problem is the onions.
Nigel Slater tells you
"The trick to getting this soup right is that the onions caramelise – they must cook for at least 35-40 minutes over a low to moderate heat. Only when the onions are soft enough to crush easily between finger and thumb can you add the flour and stock."
But take note of the 35-40 minutes. Felicity Cloake in her usually thorough analysis of how to make the perfect version says of this process, referring to Anthony Bourdain:
"In the grand tradition of chefs, he is cheerfully dishonest about how long this will take: if anyone has achieved this level of caramelisation in 20 minutes, I'd like to hear from you. In my experience, it takes at least twice that, and usually well over an hour." Felicity Cloake
Well I tried, I really did. But I would say that even after an hour, and even after cheating and raising the temperature rather than leaving it on low, I did not achieve brownness. Mine might have been pretty soft but they were a pale golden at best with a few brown flecks here and there, and this was basically because at the end I fried them rather than sweated them. Felicity Cloake mentioned that Thomas Keller cooked his onions for five hours! You have to stir them fairly frequently too to stop them burning and to distribute the heat evenly. Imagine doing that for five hours. I had to hurry up mine and abandon perfection because it was getting late and David was getting hungry. I also didn't cook the soup after the liquid had been added (beef stock and white wine) for the required hour - probably it was just half an hour.
Nigel Slater offers a way around this:
"Contemporary versions can involve roasting the onions in the oven to give a more concentrated sweetness. Red onions produce the sweetest version of all, so you might like to add thyme and bay as a balance."
There are all sorts of variations - different liquids - chicken stock, cider, champagne, white wine, red wine, port with splashes of brandy or calvados red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar, although beef stock does seem to be the favourite base. And I have to say I did use a beef stock out of a carton, which may have affected the final flavour I suppose. I don't generally make my own beef stock - just chicken stock. Mostly because I very rarely have any beef bones, though you can, of course, buy them. Well the main flavour is going to be the beef stock. And do you thicken the liquid with flour? Well I didn't but I guess you could.
Then there's the cheese - they all said Gruyère, though I used cheddar, and Nigel Slater suggest parmesan as a lighter alternative. I think I even saw a version that suggested Stilton. But you need quite a lot. I was surprised by how much really.
"if you can see soup beneath, then you need more cheese." Felicity Cloake
Then you can vary additions - garlic - not authentic, but some like Delia couldn't resist. Thyme and bay leaf were the most common herbal additions and there were various versions that used a combination of different kinds of onions.
Then you can do it Yotam Ottolenghi's way, which doesn't seem to involve slow caramelisation, but does involve peeling heaps of small onions and doesn't really look much like soup really.
I'm not sure that David liked his French onion soup. Even though he interspersed his remarks with words like delicious - and he did eat it all - he kept asking questions that implied that something about the taste did not please.
For something so seemingly basic and simple, honestly it was a bit of a chore - mostly because of getting the onions right, and I actually think I would prefer to eat the cheese croutons separately. We're going to Paris Go again on Friday. Maybe I should try their version and see if it's better.
