Thursday, September 10, 2009

French Onion Soup

I was so hungry and I couldn't bear the thought of having cereal for dinner...again. I started searching through the kitchen and I found my carton of Swanson Low Sodium Beef Broth. I immediately think French Onion Soup. I continued searching my kitchen and found all the ingredients I needed to make this dish. Yay!! French Onion Soup is my all-time comfort food. I absolutely LOVE it. Making it is not so difficult either... here's the recipe!

Recipe:
1/2 C butter
1-2 cloves garlic (chopped)
3-4 onions (sliced)
2 bay leaves
2-3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 C red cooking wine
2 tablespoons flour
4 cups beef broth
1 baguette or french bread
Mozarella Cheese
Salt & Pepper

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat.

Once the butter is melted, add onions, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, salt & pepper to the pot.

Let the onions sweat and become soft and caramelized.

This process can take up to 15-20 minutes. When the onions are done, they will have this soft golden color as shown below.

Add the red cooking wine and bring to a boil. You're going to want all the wine to evaporate and leave your onions dry and a burgandy color. This process can take 5-10 minutes.

When the onions are dry, remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Add two tablespoons of flour and turn down the heat. Stir. Cook for about 5 minutes to get the flour taste out.

This is what your onions should look like. Deep brownish/burgandy. Your house will smell amazing by this point and your mouth should start salivating. Don't worry, that's how it's suppose to be!

Finally, add the beef broth to the pot. Raise your heat to high and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling decrease the heat to low and let simmer. Your soup is now ready.

Turn your oven onto Broil and place slices of bread on a cookie sheet with a slice of cheese on top. Let the cheese melt. Watch this very carefully, your bread will burn if you don't pay attention. True story! Pour your soup in a brown and top with you bread/cheese. Deliciousness in a bowl!! The best part about French Onion Soup is that it is broth based, which means it is low in fat and for those on weight watchers, very low in points.
Enjoy!!

**Inspiration for this recipe by Tyler Florence