I’ve made French Onion Soup many times; I started with Julia Child’s French Onion Soup recipe from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” This is a very tough cookbook to use, let alone master. I know many inexperienced home cooks who will buy a copy, try a couple of the labor-intensive recipes, and vow to never cook anything from it again.
This cookbook was intended for American home cooks who wanted to learn how to cook French food. I read somewhere that Julia thought all the recipes were “manageable.” Manageable, meaning you already know how to cook well and have odd and hard-to-find ingredients available. You also need an array of kitchenware and a whole lot of time.
Julia is a very talented cook/chef who started cooking late in life. She mastered French cooking in a snap. I’ve wondered how in the hell she can lift, flip, pound ingredients with such ease and use hefty cookware. She is over a foot taller than me and stronger than most men…that’s how.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Julia Child and this cookbook. I love rewatching her PBS French Chef TV episodes. Her French Chef TV series actually showed American home cooks how to tackle the recipes. I have the cookbook The French Chef that I got for Christmas a few years ago from my sister Heather. I like this cookbook so much more because the recipes are written more clearly, and only covered the cream of the crop recipes on the TV show, not the other 150+ unmanageable ones.
I’ve tried making Julia’s 8-page French omelet in the same kind of pan she used, I am not tall enough at the stove to follow her instructions, so I have to adapt. She adapted by having all her kitchen counters, including on the set of the French Chef, lifted so she didn’t have to bend down. Realistically, I can’t have mine lowered. I am also not strong enough to shake the cast iron pan around like I am making jiffy pop.
After I made Julia’s onion soup the first time, I tried some shortcut recipes. I did the same thing with her 38-step Boeuf Bourguignon recipe. The shortcuts didn’t cut the mustard. After trying a dozen shortcut recipes, I’ve decided to use the French Chef’s recipes if I want to make it.
None of the shortcut recipes had the same depth of flavor as Julia’s. The soup tasted ok, but not the best onion soup I ever had. The same thing happened with the boeuf bourguignon recipe. I constantly compared the shortcut recipes to Julia’s, so I stop wasting time and use her damn recipe.
Julia is straightforward before she even starts the recipe to use a very sharp chef’s knife. Using a sharp knife to cut onions does not break down the cell walls inside the onion’s membranes. A dull knife causes a rougher cut, which in turn release gases that make your eyes burn. Shortcut recipes don’t tell you that. I used a very sharp knife, and my eyes teared up anyway.
Fond is the brown bits at the bottom of the pot, deglazed with wine or stock. In Julia’s case, it was always wine or some other kind of liquor.
Shortcut recipes rush the caramelization of the onions resulting in not as rich a flavor. They also don’t have you add grated fresh onion at the end of the cooking. I experimented and tasted the soup before I added the freshly grated onions. It tasted like french onion soup; I tasted it again after I added the fresh onion, and I’ll be damned…it does “lift” the soup up with a stronger onion flavor in a good way. I could taste the rich caramelized onions as well as the fresh ones. Genius!
Shortcut recipes have you toast the baguette slices then melt cheese on them before adding them to the soup. What the hell kind of lazy shit is that? You add a whole cup of the cheese, a combination of Swiss & Parmesan on top of the bread floating on top of the soup, then put it under the broiler to melt. The results? Ooey gooey cheesy heavenly topped onion soup.
The soup takes about 2 1/2 hours from start to finish, with the most time caramelizing the onions. I had things to do in the kitchen, and I wrote my surf & turf post while the onions were doing their thing.
I let the soup cool a bit then I popped it into the fridge for the next evening’s dinner. When it was time to reheat the soup, I brought it up to a simmer slowly. In the meantime, I got the grated cheeses and baguette crotons ready.
Just before we were going to eat, I ladled the soup into large soup crocks. Next, I floated the baguette crotons on top, topping with both grated cheeses.
Just a few minutes under the broiler and the cheese was bubbling and golden. My crocks were much too large to get the cheese to ooze down the sides of the crocks. I’ll have to keep my eye out in thrift shops for smaller crocks.
The soup was hotter than hell when we tried to eat it. It was like hot lava; cheese topped hot lava. Finally, when I could get in there, I actually used a fork to lift a piece of long pully cheese. It was so good! It was also very filling.
My sister Jennifer was visiting from NJ and said that it was the best French Onion Soup she ever had; it definitely is up there with the best of the best, not because I made it, but because I followed a fabulous recipe. Julia Child’s recipe.
If you like to cook, I urge you to try the Julia Child recipe and follow it exactly. I promise in the end; you will not be disappointed. If you don’t like to cook, find someone who does and get them to make it for you. 😉
http://juliachildsrecipes.com/soup/julia-childs-french-onion-soup/
I would assume the choices of the types of onions you used is probably also fairly important. I read you used a white onion, not the typical yellow ones. Did Julia’s recipe call for any specific types of onions? Thanks
Julia used yellow onions and didn’t specify what kind. I used regular yellow onions for the soup. For the grating part I used a red onion and a vadlia which is a sweet onion, not really white, but much paler skin then the yellow. I used it only because I had half of one in the refrigerator. I’m going to go back and specify in the post. Thanks Peter for making more rethink my explanation. We did pick up gorgeous white onions at the Troy Market yesterday, they were fresh, the skin not even dried yet. I suppose those turn yellowish when dry.