Thursday, January 31, 2008

January Recipe: Classic French Onion Soup

One of my all time favorite soups is French Onion. I can't tell you when or where I had my first bowl, but I can tell you where to get my favorite soup. There's a little cafe in Cobleskill, NY, called Monks. The door is complete with a painted picture of a monk, but after that, the similarity ends. This little cafe is next to my favorite store, Wal-mart! Makes the trip even better. =) Monks makes a heavenly cup of French Onion soup and I am told one of the reasons it is sooooo good, is because they put Sherry in the soup! Needless-to-say, when Michelle came up with Soup for January's recipe, I knew what I wanted to try to make for myself.

There was an added bonus as I was able to cook the soup in my slow cooker, which meant not having to watch the stove and having a nice warm bowl on a Saturday afternoon. My recipe did not include Sherry, so I added it myself and while it doesn't quite match Monks, it was still a good cup o' soup!


Classic French Onion Soup
From: Easy Home Cooking - All New Slow Cooker cookbook

Ingredients:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
3 large yellow onions, sliced
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup sherry
3 cans (14 oz. each) beef (suggested: low sodium) broth
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 loaf French bread, sliced and toasted
4 oz. shredded Swiss cheese (or other preferred cheese)

Directions:
Melt butter in large skillet (I used my LeCrueset dutch oven) over high heat. Add onions; cook and stir 15 minutes or until onions are soft and slightly browned (do not burn!). Stir in wine and sherry.

Combine onion mixture, beef broth, thyme, salt, and Worcestershire in slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW 4-4.5 hours (my Rival crockpot only has LOW for 8 or 10 hours, this works fine as well!). Ladle soup into 4 individual bowls (I got some great french onion mini crocks or soup bowls at Christmas Tree Shops for $1 or $2 each!); top with toasted bread slice and cheese (suggestion: stick in the oven, if bowls are oven proof, or the microwave to ensure cheese melts - sliced cheese works as well). Serve and enjoy!

Review: I really enjoyed this recipe and would definitely make it again. I think I'll also experiment with the other recipes that are out there just trying to find one that is similar to Monks. Hope you enjoy this on a cold Winter day like me! =)

2 comments:

Michele Humes said...

Hi Jenn, I love to make French onion, too. I have a question for you, though: what is the benefit of making this soup in a crockpot, as opposed to in the same pot you browned the onions in? Most recipes only call for about 10 minutes of extra cooking time once you add the broth, so I'm wondering what difference you have noticed between each method, if any.

Thanks!

Jenn said...

Hi Michele, So sorry for the delay in getting back to you! You raised a good question, I was trying to think back to why I put it in the crockpot rather than just leaving it in the onion pot. I only came up with three possible things - one, I didn't have to watch the pot;; two, it was hot whenever I was ready to eat it; and three, just to let to broth simmer and come together (sounds totally food channel-like! =). Ah, and I just realized reading the recipe that it called for the recipe to cook for 4-6 hours on low and now I remember that the recipe came from a crockpot cookbook! It's all coming back to me nowwwwwwwwwww... Honestly, it probably could have cooked faster - either way it was good! =)

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