Vermont Onion Soup
Chansons de Le Chef et Le Chat
Moonlight in Vermont - Frank Sinatra
The song of choice tonight was easy. I had a late start and finished this dish at nearly 11 pm, so…
Please note: foods in the Allium family are UNSAFE for animal consumption.
These include: onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives, and scallions.
A French classic with a Green Mountain twist. I brought my sous cat, Rémy, with me on a 4-day road trip to Vermont. Once there, we were able to visit Spring Brook Farms in Reading, VT. I purchased some of their Tarentaise cheese, a French Alpine-style cheese, that was also named 2020’s Best in Class at the World Champion Cheese Contest. What could be better on a cold, snowy night than a soul-warming onion soup with one of the finest cheeses in the world?
Ingredients:
The ratio of Onions to Butter PER SINGLE SERVING:
1.5 Sticks of UNSALTED butter
3 Onions
Recipe for about 4 servings:
6 sticks of butter
This may seem like a lot, and it is. American butter is not the pinnacle of healthy food. Feel free to use less, you just want to coat the onions evenly in the pot.
12 onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic (minced)
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 tablespoons of flour
0.5 cup of dry white wine
6 cups of beef stock
A Splash of Balsamic
Salt (in layers, to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
1 Baguette, sliced and toasted
Spring Brook Farm Tarentaise Alpine-Style cheese (grated)
Substitute with a nice Gruyère
Garnish - Chopped Parsley, Thyme, Chives or other
Consider adding:
Various Onions - different Alliums offer different flavors. Try combining different onions, even shallots, scallions, or leeks.
Clarified Butter or Tallow - instead of olive oil and butter, use something else for a higher smoke point and unique flavor.
Alcohol - white wine is a well-rounded option, but consider a red instead. For a sweeter profile, try Pinot Noir. For savory, try Merlot. For both, try Zinfandel. Otherwise, try cognac, brandy, or beer.
Homemade Beef Stock - easily takes this dish to another level
Time - like almost every dish, time will only make this better. Low & Slow
Umami - a splash of Worcestershire or a pinch of MSG will bring it all together
Bacon - crumbles of bacon to a soup of cheese and onions?
Caramelized Fruit- try to incorporate the subtle, sweet, fruity flavor of a pear or an apple.
Instructions:
Add Oil/Butter to a large pot-
Put the stove on medium-low heat, and add in the oil.
Adding oil forms a protective layer for the butter and slows down the cooking process as well as more evenly distributing the heat, in turn, preventing burning.
Add Onions-
Onions take forever to properly carmelize. Just try to keep stirring them every now and then. Let them go, low and slow.
A trick that I learned is to hit them with a splash of water. This will create steam which softens the onions and slightly aids in the breaking down process.
Add Garlic- Garlic that turns brown from cooking is what can give you heartburn in a dish.
To prevent this, add this in at the end of the onion caramelization. Once your onions are properly maillard-ified, (brown and delicious), add your garlic for about 30s to 1 minute.
Add Flour-
Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of flour over the onions.
Raw flour is a risk for salmonella but due to the fact that it is so fine, it will cook very quickly. We want to mix it all together, allow it to cook off for a minute, and then deglaze. As the flour cooks it will develop a wonderful nuttiness that can help the final product.
Deglaze-
Using your liquid of choice, water, wine, or other, scrape up any fond on the bottom of the pot and mix it all together. If you are using anything other than water, I like to allow this to reduce a little bit. The goal is to keep the pot wet but to also concentrate the flavor.
A good way to think about it is like this: when you have a flavored liquid, the water will evaporate but the flavor will not. So if you add the wine, the delicious sweetness and flavor will stay the same but the liquid will reduce. For example, if you have 2 parts water to 1 part flavor, as the volume decreases, your flavor remains. eventually, you can get to 1 part flavor to 1 part water, or even 1 part flavor to no water. This is the basic idea of creating a demi-glace sauce. Additionally, although they are not boiling it, this is how bees are able to make honey last so long. The bees extract water until the honey has less than 20% water content. Combined with high sugar and a naturally acidic pH, there is very little risk of microorganisms spawning and spoiling it.
Add Stock-
Let simmer 20 minutes or so.
Slice the Baguette and bake off in the oven-
I like to brush my baguette slices with garlic oil but I am also a fiend for garlic.
Stale bread works phenomenally but if you only have fresh bread then this will still be delicious. Sometimes I will slice my bread earlier in the day and let them sit out for a few hours.
Season-
You hear people say, “Season to taste,” and it is true. I like my baked potatoes and my popcorn to basically be coated in salt. That’s not everyone's preference. Season to how you like it, and then that is perfect!
The Finale-
Put your oven on broil, if you can’t do that then baking will work too.
Using the bread as a little cheese platform, add a generous quantity of cheese. You would be surprised how much you think you need. The cheese will melt down into a single layer and just a handful may not be enough to create a perfect crispy layer.
Once your heart starts to have pre-emptive aches and twitches, you’ll know you have enough. Next, Keep an eye on it while it broils. If the cheese or the bread burns black it will not ruin it, but it will not help either. The goal is anywhere from Butterscotch to Hazelnut. Once you hit Cocoa you have only seconds before it gets to Charcoal. But it’s up to preference as well!
Bon Appetit!
Before I mention anything about the dish, I want to give a huge thank you to Spring Brook Farm in Reading, Vermont. They have a wonderful program called “Farms for City Kids” where they teach us city slickers about the ins and outs of cheese and syrup making. We had a wonderful time visiting the 100 cows on the 1,000-acre property and are looking forward to the next visit.
Now for onion soup! Though originally a peasant dish, due to the low-cost ingredients like beef stock, onions, and stale bread, this dish became a staple of French culture. Its prominence grew significantly from the influence of Julia Child, French Onion Soup was also King Louis XV’s choice for many occasions.
This is one of my favorite dishes because it is undoubtedly the best comfort food for a cold, rainy, or snowy day. The beauty of such a simple and cheap recipe is that it can be changed and improved in any way that you see fit. Please feel free to send us some notes on what you did to make your own special version of this timeless classic!
