Recipe: Onion Soup

Back in my college days, I was a fledgling cook. A friend suggested soups as a good place to start. One of my favorite recipes from those days is a simple onion soup. As every cook does, I’ve modified it over the years as I experimented and found what flavors I enjoyed most, such as using stock instead of water (gelatin in stock is great for soothing the digestive tract) and increasing the amount of vitamin-rich butter. What I love about this recipe is the slow-cooking of the onions, which gives them a lovely caramelized and sweet flavor. Onions are a great immune-strengthener, and when combined with vitamins A and D found in butter, can be healing during cold season.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 70 minutes
Yields: 5 1-cup servings

Ingredients:

4-6 yellow onions, thinly sliced
4-6 tbsp butter
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp mustard
½ tsp dried thyme
4 cups water and/or stock (beef or chicken or vegetable)
2-3 tbsp soy or tamari sauce
¼ cup dry white wine or sherry
½ tsp white pepper (black is fine too)
dash of fish sauce (optional)

Directions:

Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the sliced onions and salt. Saute for 10 minutes with occasional stirring. Add the mustard and thyme. (If you don’t have dry mustard on hand, use a squirt of Dijon mustard from the fridge.) Stir to combine. Cover the pot, turn the heat to low and allow the butter and onion juices to simmer and sizzle for about 30 to 45 minutes, which allows the natural sweetness of the onions to take center stage in the soup. Next, add stock. I regularly make homemade chicken stock (see recipe here) and always have that in my freezer. Beef stock is of course used in traditional French onion soup, and gives a richer flavor. Use what you have on hand. Add remaining ingredients and allow to cook another 15 minutes more. Add a few shakes of fish sauce to pot just before serving.

Since it’s rare that I have croutons in the house, I like to serve this with crisp and dried toast and a sprinkle of Swiss cheese. The flavors of Swiss meld best with this dish, but since I love cheese I’ll use any cheese I have, including sharp cheddar and parmesan.