Simple: French Onion Soup with Cheese Crouton

This soup is a classic, simple and elegant at the same time and works as a 

starter as well as a sating evening meal on a stormy night.

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For 6 people.


Tools:

Grill option in your oven (regular heating coils from above suffice)
Pot with lid
Kitchen knife
Cutting board
Wooden spoon
Ladle
6 ovenware soup bowls or casseroles with saucers
Baking tray
Cheese grater
A radio or newspaper


Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter
4 very large onions (Spanish onions)
1,5 l beef stock (chicken or vegetable stock are fine too)
1 laurel leaf
6 baguette slices (smaller in diameter than the opening of the soup bowls)
At least 100 g cheese (I recommend Gruyère)
Scotch


Preparation: 

0. 

Prepare the beef stock (if you make it from powder f.e.), cut the bread 

slices, measure all the ingredients. 

1.
Toast the bread in toaster, oven, or frying pan. (No fat)
Grate the cheese and lay it on the toasted bread, as much or as little as 

you want, then set the bread aside. 

2.
Peel the onions, halve them and cut them into thin half rings. This way 

they can sit firmly on the board and not roll around while you cut. 

3.
Melt the butter in the pot, then add the onions. Swish them around in 

the pot (wooden spoon) for up to ten minutes. Do not let them fry. 

4.
Add 0,25 l beef stock, keep stirring and let it boil until the broth has

almost gone. Scrape the caramelised parts off of the bottom once in a 

while. (This can take about 30 minutes.) Pass the time with a radioplay 

or reading the newspaper. I recommend about two fingers of scotch as well. 

5.
Add the rest of the stock and the laurel leaf.
Put the lid on and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it 

simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir once in a while. 

6.
Fish the laurel leaf out and dispose of it.
Put the soup bowls on the baking tray and ladle the soup into them.
Place a cheese bread on each of the soups and put them into the oven/

under the grill. Keep an eye on the cheese breads. They burn easily.

The cheese has to melt and bubble.
Take the soups out and serve them.



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Tips:

If the soup is burned in the pot, you don't have to throw it away. Stop 

scraping at the bottom and pour the soup into a new pot, leaving the burnt 

parts behind.

Simmer vs. boil: Boiling is what you need your water to do if you want to 

boil eggs or pasta, a violent bubbly chaos. A simmer is a quieter, slower 

version of this, not as hot, with small and few bubbles.