Onion Soup. An epic guide with heartbreaking pictures.

On my very first trip to Paris, in December 1995, I had two main goals. Of course there were others, stated in my visa application, like discussing our new projects with colleagues of our parent company. But on weekend, I wanted: 1. See the "Impression" of Claude Monet. (Yes, this IS the painting that gave the world the term "impressionism".) And 2. Have an onion soup. We did both, and some other things like visiting Tour Eiffel, but those were secondary. That was in December, couple of weeks before Christmas, and it was cold. On Sunday, after spending several hours on the streets, we got into a restaurant that had onion soup on menu (most of them do in Paris). And when I got it, I could not wait till it becomes less hot because: 1. It was COLD. And 2. I wanted to have an onion soup!

That was a nice experience. My mouth was burnt and swollen for several days.

I have brought some soft French cheese from that trip as well, and in the years following that we have finally become addicted to it. But it was not before 2002 that we tried to cook our own onion soup.

We have visited Paris in December 2001, that time as a family. It was cold too. And there was the onion soup, eaten more carefully as to avoid the burns. After getting back home, on one weekend, I did some search on the Internet for "French onion soup recipe", found several ones (all were written in French - I trust natives) and tried to adapt them to my needs. The recipes said that I have to use beef stock but out of my respect to cows that give us cheese, I made the soup just with water, and it worked, so I highly recommend it to any vegetarian. The rest is not history but a guide to preparing onion soup. It's not really a recipe because you can be flexible in what are you doing. Adjust the story to your own taste and try couple of times. The ingredients are cheap, easily procured and you have absolutely no chance to get something inedible in the end.

You start with counting the number of persons that are going to fight for soup. I count kids as adults, each of them, because I'm always glad to finish after them. For each person you need:

One big onion per person. The size of adults fist, if it's a small fist, not that of furniture mover. If your onion is smaller, like a chicken egg, take 1.5 or 2 per person.
Butter and/or oil. For my taste, oil should be that without smell (not salad olive oil). You can use margarine too, but check that it can be used for cooking or backing. Combined it should be 50-100g per 3-4 persons. This is completely flexible. Fat adds taste but is not, you know, healthy.
Wheat meal for thickness. We are four and I use three well heaped tablespoons for us.
250-300ml of water. Some will vaporize during cooking, don't be surprized that the result is little bit thicker.
Hard cheese. Cut into pieces, it should be like a 300ml cup for 3-4 persons. See a picture further in the story. "Hard" means "normal" cheese, not Parmesan. Try different ones.
Salt. I use about one non-heaped tea spoon for four persons. If unsure, put less first then taste during cooking. Warning: as water evaporates it becomes slightly more salty.
Black pepper (powder). You need just a little bit, but you do need it absolutely. I am no fan of spicy food but without pepper the soup is tasteless.
White or red wine. Dry or sweet - doesn't matter, but don't start without it. Important is: you need just one tablespoon per 1-2 persons. The rest, unless you cook the soup every day, will have to be consumed somehow. So, you needn't buy the most expensive wine but be careful of buying the most cheap that you cannot drink after (though it will work for soup - 100%).
Wheat bread. It should be French baguette actually, but we always use sliced toast bread, mostly whole grain, one slice per person. This goes into the soup, but you can serve more bread (toasted is best) separately too.

The soup is served either is special small soup pots or in big (0.5 liter) cups. The latter will be pictured at the end of this guide. You need one cup for each person. Soup is not served in dishes, maybe only for small kids you put it out to make it cooler.

Let's go:

Peel the onions, cut in halves (vertically, to get half rings) and slice them. Pieces should be as thin as you do for salad. If you are in a hurry or too lazy, and don't have a machine (I don't), avoid making too thick pieces. Too big, they do not taste good somehow.

Heat a frying pan. You need one that can be completely covered later. But when frying the onions, it should be open. When heated, put butter and oil. Put the cut onions. Fry them on the middle heat, stirring to prevent them sticking to the pan. When they start giving juice, add salt.

Key moment: how long to fry? Onions start giving juice off, then they become very soft and provided that they are on middle heat, at some moment there is not enough juice anymore to prevent the slight sticking and browning. Turn off immediately. Browning should not happen. If it does, the soup doesn't become poisonous but it's not as tasty.

Pour wheat meal evenly and stir. Cover the pan.

While you are waiting for onions to fry, you can prepare toasts and cheese, if you want to save time. We'll cover this later.

Now you add water. Usually I boil it in a kettle - it's quicker. So, you add it and stir so that meal mixes well with water. Important: if it seems to you it's not thick enough, do not add more meal. It forms balls and spoils the picture. Remember how much did you put and put more the next time.

Heat on high till it starts to boil. Now you have a choice: you either cook it on low, covered, stirring periodically, for 30-40 minutes, or, as we do, switch the heat off, leave the pan covered on the heated cooker and take a walk (an hour or more, enough to prepare you to this wonderful experience). Get back, stir it well and cook it for 15 minutes, stirring. In both cases, few minutes before the end, add pepper, stir, and then add wine. Stir again. On this last stage, you can check whether you have enough salt for you and add it if necessary.

We are almost there! You have just about twenty minutes of hard work ahead!

Before putting the soup into cups, you have to get toasts and cheese. Normally I toast the bread while I fry the onion. Left for a couple of hours, they dry even more and taste better in soup. I toast them so that they get a little bit brown (or just dark yellow). I cut the corners of the toasts to fit them better into cups.

Real French onion soup is made with pieces of baguette. It seems they don't toast them. But I never use baguettes. Somehow, outside of France, even if you buy a baguette from the most expensive backery, it doesn't taste much better than styrofoam.

Now, the cheese. Just cut it into pieces, like for salad. If it's softer, it melts quickly and probably remains melted in the soup, so the pieces do not have to be very small. You can buy ready to use cheese in most groceries of course. See the illustration below.

Stir the soup to have onions distributed evenly. Start putting it into cups. One third thirst, and pour some cheese over it. Another third, cheese again. Then put the rest, cover it with toasts, and pour the rest of cheese.

Now the cups should be put into an oven. I doubt that microwave can work here. We use a small electric grill oven most of time. I set the heat to maximum, first from the bottom, and after 5-10 minutes, add the heat from the top to have cheese properly melt. As soon as soup starts boiling slightly, you can turn the heat off. READY!

Be careful when taking the cups out. When serving, use underplates. Cups are very hot!

I tried to add some color by putting some basilicum leaves, as pictured below. It's up to you.

The whole preparing process can take from two to four hours, but as I said above, two of those hours can be spared if you boil the soup first, then go take a walk, and finish it after. The recipes of "soupe d'oignon" that I have found on the Internet said that cooking (the boiling part) should last several hours, but it seemed insane to me. Of course, you can have it easier and quicker if you go visit Paris, but nothing makes so much fun as preparing the soup yourself!

Bon appetit!

(Questions are welcome).