French Onion Soup To Warm Your Cockles….with Suzanne Dunaway
This French onion soup recipe will definitely hit the spot on a cold winter night.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoon olive oil or butter
- 6-8 large, sweet onions, sliced very thin
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 quarts beef or chicken stock
- A few drops lemon juice
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 6 slices French bread
- 6 tablespoons Parmigiano-Reggiano or gruyere, grated
In a soup casserole, heat the olive oil or butter until hot. Add the onions and sauté until very soft. Add the flour and stir for a minute or two until the “roux” (flour and oil or butter) has cooked through.
Add the beef or chicken broth just to cover and simmer on low hear for 20-30 minutes. Add the lemon juice and adjust the seasoning.
Toast the bread, sprinkle with the cheese and place on top of the onion soup. Broil the soup under a broiler for a minute or two to melt the cheese. Serve a slice of bread with some of the soup in each bowl.
Rich Chicken Stock:
- All the bones from a chicken carcass, the carcass cut to fit your pot!
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 small sweet onions, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 small bunch parsley, chopped
- 1 disc of a ginger root (optional but makes great stock)
- Wine if you like
Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot and add the bones and vegetables. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Skim off the foam that rises to the top which will take about 3 skims, then lower the heat and cook for 30-40 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste and refrigerate. You can add a splash of white or rose wine to the mix if you like.
Beef stock is made the same way except with leftover (or new) beef ribs or steak bones, roasted first in the oven until brown, then put in a pot with the same ingredients as the chicken stock. I often ask the butcher if he has any bones he is happy to part with…most butchers will gladly help.
Meet the chef
P-O Life reader, Suzanne Dunaway, has cooked since she was 5 years old, when she made cinnamon pinwheels from her mother’s pastry dough.
She LOVES to cook. Some might say she LIVES to cook. The smells, the tastes, the textures…
She is a firm believer in simplicity and creates her recipes in the ethos of ‘anyone can cook’.
After years of experience in her own kitchen, cooking schools and private classes all over the world, in this weekly blog, Suzanne shares with us her PO-inspired creations.
With many strings to her bow, she is also an artist and columnist, with two published cookbooks.
Get a copy of her ‘No Need to Knead: Handmade Artisan Breads in 90 Minutes’ here
Or her 5 star rated book ‘Rome, at Home: The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen’ here
All content and recipes are copyright of Suzanne Dunaway.
