We have a large French influence in our house and in celebration of Bastille Day I made french onion soup for dinner. We started on some foie gras with some toasted frenchstick while my onions caramelised on the stove. The smell was divine. It filled the apartment with a sweet butter smell and without the risk of sounding a bit odd, I admit to standing over the stove and inhaling the aroma like a crazy person. I found the recipe on the Gourmet Traveller website. After much research in cookbooks and websites, this one seemed most “true” to the dish. With anything I do, be it cooking or not, if I can’t do it properly I won’t do it at all. There were websites that had basil in their soup, others couldn’t make up their mind about using white wine or red wine. I just wanted an authentic recipe and I found it there. I couldn’t stop praising myself for doing such a good job. I know when I cook a good meal and that was the best soup I’ve ever eaten. The onions were perfectly done – when I bit into them, I only tasted butter, not onion. The only criticism I had was that there wasn’t enough for seconds, thirds, fourths…. Even Cupcake enjoyed a few onions too! I bought some fresh Gruyere from New Farm Deli, although not cheap at $60 a kilo, we only needed about 100g to cover the dishes with. We enjoyed it with a bottle of 2006 EPIS Pinot Noir. If you have a great french onion soup recipe, please share it with me. I’d love to try it out.
