True story: Until about six or seven years ago I didn’t like eating onions. I was fine with their flavor and if they were in dishes as long as they were chopped finely, but I didn’t like onion rings (except for the breading), or big chunks of onions in food, or caramelized onions, or anything of the sort. I don’t really know why I had this aversion – my parents never forced them on me and I pretty much liked all other vegetables (except peppers). But then I lived with Angela, who also didn’t like things like root beer (wtf? weirdo) but would drink it anyway in an effort to learn to like it. I thought that was a pretty neat idea and followed suit; so now, I love onions and peppers.
Man, that was a good story.
Anyway, I think the first 24-ish years of my life kind of made me afraid of cooking onion-based things. I am fine if they are ingredients, but the basis of the dish? Not so sure about that one, especially for something like French onion soup. I feel as though it is supposed to be kind of a big deal which added another (tasty, tasty) layer of intimidation. Also, there are a crap load of French onion soup recipes out there. You can find recipes for “The Best French Onion Soup” - at least a million different iterations; Quick French Onion Soup, Stove Top French Onion Soup and anything in between.
For our experiment Court and I picked two recipes: 1) Cook’s Illustrated (they test the heck out of those recipes, so if one is going to claim to be the best, I am going with that one) and 2) One from Smitten Kitchen (because it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t use one of her recipes in each post). [Ha! But also because I figured, if we were going to make this recipe, we should make it the classic way the first time, and Smitten’s recipe is basically Julia Child’s recipe, which I figured was the gold standard. – Court] I was in charge of making the Cook’s Illustrated recipe since I like doing things that are tedious and extra difficult without any discernable reason and Court did the Smitten recipe because she is sane.
Cooks Illustrated Recipe
For this recipe you have to cook the onions in a Dutch oven for 2.5 – 2.75 hours. Which makes them nice and soft, but I am not sure it adds much to the recipe as a whole. And is just a really long time for anything to be in the oven.
The next part, I think is the most useful part to adding flavor and color to the soup. After you take the Dutch oven out, you set it directly on a burner and cook the onions, stirring frequently, until the liquid from the onions evaporates and the onions brown (caramelize). During this process, a brown gunky crusty thing is going to form on the bottom of the pot. You want this! It is tasty! When the crust covers about one-third of the bottom (that is about as long as I could wait at least) you add some water and deglaze the pan. You repeat this process 2-3 more times (see what I mean about tedious?) for a total crust/deglaze process of up to four times. This is basically another hour of cooking the onions here, but is way more interactive than just shoving them in the oven, so you know, you actually feel like you are making soup rather than just sitting on your butt while the onions are in the oven.
After the crust/deglazing process you add the sherry and let it evaporate then add the broths (both chicken and beef!), water, herbs, and spices and let it simmer for 30 minutes. {Note: We did not have sherry. We asked BLK sommelier Abi if we could substitute red wine, and she about had a heart attack. She suggested balsamic vinegar, which we added but it didn’t seem to do much for the flavor. – Court]
But, wait! There’s more!
So, I guess what some people really like about French Onion Soup is the crouton and cheese on top. We kind of half-assed this part because neither Courtney nor I have the bowls/ramekins that are supposed to be used. Instead we just toasted some bread in the oven with some gruyere. (BTW, this whole thing was worth it just for that.)
Voila! Dinner is ready just a short five hours later.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking Recipe
So, here is the real reason I picked this recipe: I am impatient (and lazy!). The active time for this soup was probably a quarter of Turk’s recipe. Basically, you slice the onions and caramelize them – which does take a while, about 45 minutes – then add in some broth and cook it down until it’s all warm and tasty.
After making Turk slice the onions, I started to caramelize them in the Dutch oven. The recipe calls for caramelizing the onions until they are an “even, deep, golden brown.” Here’s where we ran into a problem: semantics. Does that mean a DEEP GOLDEN brown, or a deep, GOLDEN brown? Because, DEEP GOLDEN would take a really long time to achieve – way longer than the promised 45 minutes. I could only make it to, well, LIGHT golden brown.
In fact, Turk can attest that after about half an hour I started peeking in the pot every couple of minutes asking “Is it deep golden brown now?” I’m so charming. I finally got too impatient (compare my caramelized onions with Turk’s) and had to move on to the next step.
The recipe then called for “brown broth,” and since I don’t even know what that is [brown broth is when the bones and vegetables have been roasted before making them into broth – Turk via my brother], I used the suggested (organic!) beef bouillon, which seemed to work fine. I cooked it for another 30 minutes or so (the recipe didn’t say how to tell it was done but, again, I was getting impatient). This version then called for adding cognac but we didn’t have any of that, either. So we went with . . . bourbon.
The Verdict
Turk: Overall, I would say I liked the color and the onions in my soup better, but the taste of Court’s soup better. The bourbon that we used for hers added a really nice flavor profile. I think we should come up with a hybrid recipe and throw yet another option into the mix. Who wants some FOS?
Court: I wish that the onions in my soup had been sliced thicker, because they ended up cooking down to almost a mush. I also wish I had been a leeeetle more patient with the onions, but I agree the bourbon was a nice touch. I think the texture and color of Turk’s was way better – more like a classic French onion soup. But the thyme actually kind of overwhelmed hers, and from my lazy perspective it didn’t seem like she gained all that much from the hours of cooking. Impatience for the win!
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