Mike Van de Elzen: French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

Cook time: 40 minutes

Prep time: 20 minutes

Serves: 6

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sunflower oil

6 large onions, peeled and sliced

6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp plain flour

1 cup white wine

1.5 litres beef stock

1 French baguette

1 cup grated gruyere

Pre-heat a oven to 180*c.

Take a medium - large pot and heat over a low heat. Add in the oil and butter and melt. Add the sliced onions and crushed garlic.

Cook for 10 minutes to allow the onions to sweat down and start to soften. Now, add the sugar and continue to cook on low for another 10 minutes. This is the time you want to build up a heavy and rich caramelized flavour in the onions, which is what the sugar helps with.

Add the flour, make sure it's well combined before adding the white wine and beef stock.

Cook out on low for a further 20 minutes before laying thick slices of baguette over the top of the soup and grated gruyere on top.

Place into the oven for a further 10 minutes to allow the bread to soak up the soup and the cheese to melt and colour up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
EDB Mike vanda Elsen, our resident chef, joins us, Now,
good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good body.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
You're a fan of the Olympics.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
I haven't seen a single smidgem of it. Unfortunately, as
much as I'd love to, there's plenty of time.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
We're only through day one in an opening ceremony, which
is quite controversial from the feedback I've had this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I know, I don't actually know whether i'd want to
be there with all the disruptions that's going on.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's two weeks. It's too I know. I know that
there is that when you're living in it, and it
is difficult. But you know, Paris is certainly showing off.
It's in all its glory. Yes, even with the rainy
weather at the opening ceremony, it did look pretty.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
I still don't get Lady Gaga though, you know what.
I know she was singing French, but go on, you
can't get anyone more American?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Can I've never seen so many pianos put in really
awkward places. Whoever was in charge of the pianos for
the opening ceremony must have just gone you want to
do what now I've got to get another piano where
honestly it was hilarious. Anyway, moving on, You've been inspired though,
to provide us with something a classic French dish.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I thought I'd do French dishes for the next two weeks.
This week is French onion soup, which you probably can't
get more French, and I've got a little bit of
history into it. French onion soup came about like going
back to the fifteenth century, no even earlier the thirteenth century,
and it was a peasant soup back then because onions
were both plentiful and affordable, and so it wasn't Actually

(01:53):
it didn't actually become a real a dish for many
households until thirteen ninety three when it was published in
a book and it included ingredients. They changed the recue
to include ingredients of ginger saffron, which were rare and
expensive back then, and thus made it a dish that
would be popular in the wealthy household. So it went

(02:14):
from being a peasant dish to a wealthy dish in
thirteen ninety three. Isn't that extraordinary? I'd love to have
that cookbook anyway. So French onion soup, what is it?
You basically take, I've got this would be enough for
six people, and preheat an oven because it's going to
be finished in an oven. So turn on your other
one hundred and eighty degrees into a large pot, preferably

(02:38):
one that you can put into a dirt into an
oven like a steel or a cast on one. Heat
it up over a medium heat, and then add in
two tablespoons and sunflower or and a tablespoon of butter.
Gently fry off six large onions that have been peeled
and sliced. So the word gentle means I don't want
to see too much color going into those onions, so

(02:58):
I don't want to get them too brown as at
this early point, So just gently along with that. You've
got six gloves of garlic saute sautee that for about
ten minutes until the onions just start to sweat down
and just start to soften. And then over the top
you want to add a teaspoon of sugar. What that
does is now it brings in the caramelization. A French
onion soup is a heavily caramelized soup, so very sweet

(03:22):
so sprinkle over a teaspoon of sugar, sautee that off
for another I've got ten minutes here until you reach
a like a rich caramelized flavor, and that's where the
sugar helps. At this point, you want to add and
two tablespoons of plain flour. Sprinkle that over the top.
Just give that a quick little mixed through before you add.
And I've got a cup of white wine. You want

(03:43):
to dry wine. You don't want to sweet wine, so
go dry wine. And then one point five liters of
beef stock. So what a French onion soup is basically
onions and beef stock cooked together. Once you add the
beef stock, turn it down, cook it for a further
twenty minutes, and then take a French baguette or a
sourdough or any sort of crunchy, crusty bread, cut that

(04:05):
into like large slices, lay that over the top of
your soup, and then over the top you want to
sprinkle some grill year cheese which has been grated, and
then fire the whole lot into the oven. That's going
to stay in the oven for at least thirty minutes.
And what you want after that period of time is
for that soup to soak up all the bread to
soak up the soup, and for the cheese on top

(04:26):
to go nice and caramelized and crunchy and melty. You
might want to just finish it on grill before you
serve it, just to ensure you've got a real crispy top.
And then when you serve it, you basically put your
big ladle in past those toasted cheesy goodye bredies parties
and then into the soup and then you ladle that out.
So the finished product is something of saltiness with the cheese,

(04:52):
sweetness with the onion, beefiness with the beef stock. But
pull it all together, it's quite a hearty soup.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Absolutely. Something else you discovered is that onion soup is
not really part of French people's daily meals. It was
originally meant to be eaten after a family reunion in
the middle of the night to cure.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Hangovers, and also when they went to the cabare ratios.
They'll go to the shows and then they'll go home
and they would have French onion soup to avoid them
from waking up with a hangover.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I wonder obviously it worked if they keep doing its
coming in the liquid.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
You give it a go and for you.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Do some research for us, Mike and let me know
next week. Now, Muzz was very upset that it wasn't
a mushroom soup. I'd tease that you were going to
do a classic soup and he was upset. But I'm
sure that if you hid too Good from Scratch, Dot,
co Dot and Zmaz, you'll be able to find that
recipe there, as well as Mike's Kiwi French onion soup.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio