Ooo-La-La. Frenchy Soup

There are 2 times a year when I'm terrified to venture out to a restaurant, or even out in public for that matter. The first day is New Year's Eve. The second, Valentine's Day.

But things are slowly changing. Fred and I welcomed in 2007 at a New Year's Eve dance located just west of TIMES SQUARE, of all places. It wasn't that bad. We got through the well-managed crowds without a hitch, then had a blast dancing the night away. Or at least, dancing until 12:30 AM, which is pretty much "the night" when you're pushing 40.

Valentine's Day was always a bummer. When I was single, at least it was easy to ignore with some well-ordered take-out and a quick "click-clunk" of my apartment door locks. Having a boyfriend is when it really sucked. I had to force myself to buy him a card or think of a gift.

That's changed too...maybe because I'm finally celebrating with the right guy. I quite like V-Day with Fred. I happily buy him little gifts and goofy cards. A lot has to do with the fact that I can really be myself around him, there's no pressure to act or be a certain way. So it's easy to do little things that say, "Hey! I like you!", especially when I give him so much chocolate that he has to share.

Despite my changes of heart, I still avoid restaurants on these holidays. This year was no exception. For New Year's Eve I made an herbed beef tenderloin with roasted potatoes and asparagus. Valentine's Day called for something a tad lighter, so I pulled a recipe from the Sunday NYTimes magazine and ended up with Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee. (There should be a lot of accent marks on this, but I'm not sure how to add them on blogger. Sorry.)

My old pal Amanda Hesser wrote about a recipe she found from the 1907 book called "Gastonomie Pratique" by Ali-Bab. (Anyone else notice how she's getting very food historian- like these days? Her last submission was a stuffed pork chop recipe from the fifties.) It looked too good to pass up, and I figured a nice, light V-Day dinner of soup and salad would leave plenty of room for chocolate. Oh, and romance. Uh, yeah, romance.

There are a lot of steps but none of them are difficult. Although you have to caramelize the onions, simmer the soup for 30 minutes, and then bake it for an hour, so it's not exactly a Rachel Ray delight. But it's certainly simple enough, and there are only 6 ingredients. I used my slicing blade on the food processor for the onions to save time and tears. Once I had the ingredients ready, I built the simple soup very easily. Here it is before going into the oven:


What's amazing about this soup is how rich it becomes without the help of beef broth. You just add water and let the flavors get to work. Granted, there's enough cheese and butter to make a cardiologist cringe, so it's not like the flavor comes from magic. Still, I was surprised by the intense flavor of the broth.

I loved the way it looked coming out of the oven. It spooned nicely into the dishes, though this recipe is much more "Gratinee" than "Soupe", since the bread absorbs most of the moisture. Oh, and about that. You get a lot of soggy bread. Even if you use day-old bread toasted to deep brown. It's deliciously salty, oniony, buttery and cheesy bread, but still, soggy. Personally I like the warm, spoonable bites. But some of you may have a problem with certain textures, so this may not be for you.

But the crust. The crust! Crackly with baked cheese and sweet onions, with a slight crunch of the top layer of bread, it's quite awe-inspiring.

It's veeeerrrrryyy filling. I had one serving and I was filled to the gills, and I'm a second helpings kind of gal. We had about half left over, and although it tasted fine a couple of days later, it didn't reheat well. No crunchy crust, just soggy bread that wasn't as warm and quivery as the original version.

So I say if you want to make an impressive soup and have a lot of time to dedicate to it, then this is the recipe for you. Hell, it's a good recipe. Will I make it again? Ask me on December 31.


1907: Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee
from "Gastronomie Pratique" by Ali-Bab. This recipe appeared in the Times in a 1974 article by Craig Claiborne. (My man!)

1 baguette, cute into 1/2" slices, about 25 to 30
9 TBL softened butter
9 ounces of Emmental cheese, finely grated
8 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced (about 8 cups)
1 TBL kosher salt, more to taste
1 cup tomato puree

1. Toast the baguette slices and let them cool. Spread a generous layer of butter on each slice (about 5 TBL), then lay the slices close together on a baking sheet and top with all but 1/2 cup of cheese.

2. In a large saucepan, melt the remaining 4 TBL of butter over medium heat. Add the onions, season with salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until very soft and golden, about 15 minutes.

3. In a 5-quart casserole, arrange a layer of bread slices, (about 1/3 of them). Spread 1/3 of the onions on top, followed by 1/3 of the tomato puree. Repeat for 2 more layers. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. To avoid boiling over, the casserole must not be more than 2/3 full.

4. In a saucepan, bring 1 1/2 quarts water to a boil. Add the salt. Very slowly pour the salted water into the casserole, near the edge, so that the liquid rises just to the top layer of cheese without covering it. Depending on the size of your casserole, you may need more or less water.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the casserole on the stove and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, then transfer to the oven and bake uncovered for 1 hour. The soup is ready when the surface looks like a crusty, golden cake and the inside is unctuous and so well blended that it is impossible to discern either cheese or onion. Each person is served some of the baked crust and some of the inside, which should be thick but not completely without liquid.