Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée:
French Onion Soup
A classic New Year’s breakfast treat!
Although my first memories of french onion soup date back to my childhood years, experienced at a fancy-casual restaurant in a local shopping mall - brown earthenware bowls, crowned with bubbling, golden-spotted blankets of melting cheese gently creeping over the edges - I was intrigued as a college student in Normandy to learn that this affordable, comforting bowl of is a New Year’s breakfast staple. It is a standard part of a New Year’s Eve club ticket as a 6 am offering, after the requisite flute of champagne at midnight. The thinking is that this magical elixir will nourish a body tired from a night of jubilant festivities and lessen the effects of inebriation.
All this said, whether you have enjoyed french onion soup as lunch or dinner here, or as a breakfast treat in France, this is one thing that goes out the window with a celiac or similar diagnosis. It’s easily made gluten free by making it at home, though. It’s super easy to convert to gluten free with the convenience of ready made gluten-free baguettes such as those by Schär Gluten-Free, Against the Grain, Udi’s or whatever other brands you may have available near you!
Traditionally, this soup contains wheat flour in the broth, as well as in the baguette. If you can do dairy, the butter in the cooking process adds a little body and nice mouthfeel to the soup on it’s own - the flour as a thickener is optional. If you can’t do dairy, this soup is equally satisfying made with olive oil in place of butter… enjoyed with a few slices of garlic-rubbed, toasted baguette in place of just one covered with cheese.
This recipe is a variation on the standards you’ll find on french sites and blogs in that it calls for cooking the onions a bit longer than is traditional, to ensure plenty of gentle carmelization and a tender, melting mouthfeel to the onions.
Ingredients (for 4 servings)
4 - 6 Onions (any medium or large variety or combo) thinly sliced
5 cloves Garlic (+1 more to rub on toast if doing dairy-free)
4 - 5 TBSP Unsalted butter or olive oil
1 TBSP Gluten-free all purpose flour
1 tsp Sugar (whatever type you have on hand)
1 Bay leaf
4 C Chicken, beef or even veggie broth (room temp or warm)
1 C Dry white wine or leftover champagne/prosecco
Salt and pepper (to taste)
1/2 Gluten-free baguette cut into 1/2”-3/4” slices
6 oz. Gruyere or ementhaler, grated
Method
In a heavy-bottomed pot, over medium-low heat, melt half the butter and scatter sliced onions over it in the pan. Sprinkle with the tablespoon of “flour” and a bit of salt; give a good stir, scatter the remaining butter and teaspoon of sugar over the onions and leave untouched for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, add the slices of garlic to the pot and stir to incorporate. If you see fond (browning) on the pan’s surface, use a wooden spoon or firm-edged silicone spatula to scrape it up and mix it into the onions. Leave onions and garlic to cook 20 minutes more, slightly lowering the temparature if there was a lot of browning.
After the second 20 minutes, give the onions another stir and scrape up any additional fond. Toss in the bay leaf and add a few grinds of black pepper, and pour in the broth and wine. Set heat to medium, cover and to bring to a boil. Lower heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450°F and set oven rack to upper middle position.
Toast baguette slices, coated with a little butter or olive oil. If forgoing dairy, rub the toasted slices with the exposed side of a clove of garlic, after slicing down the middle, and reserve slices to enjoy with finished soup.
Once the soup is ready, ladle into 4 oven-safe bowls, arranged on a foil-lined baking sheet. Place a toasted slice of baguette just on the soup’s surface in each bowl. Place 1/4 of the shredded cheese on top of the soup and baguettes in each bowl. Place in the oven, and bake - keeping an eye on it - until the cheese is melted, bubbling and starting to brown.
Allow to cook for 3-5 minutes, then dig in!
