French Onion Soup

Yesterday as I looked out at the snow I thought it would be a great day to make some soup to go with my bread. But I really didn't want a normal soup, I wanted something special, and the first thing that came to mind was French Onion Soup. My second thought was that I should have several versions of French Onion Soup in my cookbook collection, so I should look through them to find the best recipe. Oddly enough, I found very few recipes for french onion soup. I chose the one that I thought looked the simplest, and this one came from a cookbook that I don't think I've ever used.

Pol Martin's Supreme Cuisine was a cookbook that Andy had when I first met him. Published in 1993, it actually looks older. Some of the pictures are a bit unappetizing actually, but there were several that looked interesting enough to play with sometime. What I will say though, is that this was darn good french onion soup. I followed the directions mostly, but had to make a few adjustments for what I had on hand. What I really enjoyed about this soup (Andy as well) was that it wasn't overly salty. I've had many french onion soups that are just loaded with salt, and that takes away from it. This one was sweet from the caramelizing of the onions, and I used fontina cheese to sprinkle the top. The fontina was a perfect addition because it didn't take away from the soup, it just added the crowning touch in a mildly salty, cheesy way.

Other changes I made were that I used olive oil instead of butter to caramelize the onions, I cooked the onions over low for more like 90 minutes to brown them, I left out the wine, and I used a lot less cheese than called for. I left the cheese out of the bottom of the soup cups, and just sprinkled 2 tablespoons on top of each one. This is a definite winner. We both really enjoyed it and I will be making it again. I have the recipe for Onion Soup Au Gratin in the recipe trove.