Recipe: French onion soup

French onion soup is a great way to warm up when it's chilly outside.  Plus I love filling the home with the sweet smell of onions slowly caramelizing.  This recipe should do about 4 servings thick with onions.  An important fact that a lot of people don't know is the difference between cutting onions with or across the grain.  If you want an onion to break down, say for a puree, cut across the grain.  When caramelizing onions for soup, burgers or otherwise, you want the onions to stay in strands throughout cooking, so cut along the grain.  For the toast part beneath the cheese, I usually deviate from the traditional baguette and make a batch of salad style croutons just so it's a bit easier to dig into the cheese without trying to cut through the crust of the baguette.  You get more bites with the complete soup, bread and cheese experience that way - the square croutons also give it a little more of a rustic look when all toasted up.  Try using a quality local artisan bread like a dark rye or sourdough.  Play around with the cheese too - swiss is great, but an aged and smoked cheddar or gouda can do wonders.  The last time we made this soup at home, we used a nice friulano cheese.

You will need:

3                large onions
6                cloves garlic minced fine
3C/750ml  beef stock
1C/250ml  red wine
pinch         cumin
pinch         paprika
1                bay leaf
2 sprigs     thyme
splash        Worchestershire sauce
to taste       kosher salt
to taste       black pepper
to cover     croutons
to cover     cheese (swiss traditionally)

Method:

 - julienne the onions (along the grain) and slowly caramelize in a pan with a bit of oil
 - when the onions are a light brown colour, add the garlic and caramelize further

 - once the colour is fairly dark, add your cumin, paprika, and some black pepper
 - deglaze the pan with the red wine and let it reduce almost dry
 - add the beef stock, bay leaf and thyme and let simmer 20-30 minutes
 - season with Worchestershire and salt, then pick out the bay leaf and thyme
 - cut and toast your croutons if you haven't already
 - fill your cups with soup, cover with croutons and cheese and toast under a broiler til bubbling and brown
 - garnish with cracked pepper and dig in