February 25, 2012

FFwD: Cheese-Topped Onion Soup

I've made French Onion soup before, but have always rushed the process with browning my onions.  This time, I started out patiently with what I thought was plenty of time to actually caramelise my onions and make a pot of soup.

Well, apparently I bought the non-browning onions for this recipe.  I cooked them on the lowest setting on my stove for 1 hour - no colour.  OK, the recipe said 1 hour or more, so I nudged the heat up a little and another 35 minutes passed - no colour.  So, now the husband is home and the in laws are on their way over and I have a pot of ghostly onions.  Patience lost at this point, I decided to crank up the heat and carry on!

As far as the cheesy top, I did it separately and served on top of the soup. Hopefully, reading other posts I can find the magic trick to brown onions successfully.

Happy French Friday!

I started crying at the 2lb. mark

My colourless soup, thank goodness for cheese toast!

12 comments:

  1. Sorry you struggled with browing the onion. Personally, I put my heat on a tad under medium (I have a gas stove) and keep a real eye on things. Giving them lots of surface area to cook on helps too.
    Cheese toast sounds really good, though. I hope your dinner was still a success.

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    1. I started to think there were too many onions in the pot. I'll try higher heat next time. Everyone still enjoyed it and you can never go wrong with cheesy ciabatta bread :)

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  2. Sorry this did not work out for you. Cooking the onions seems to be a problem when
    you read through all the blogs. Eventually my soup turned out well, but very time consuming.
    I like the look of your cheese bread though, how can you go wrong.

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    1. Yes, I'm glad I wasn't the only one with tanning troubles. The soup was good, but would be better with that caramelised flavour.

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  3. Sorry you had a problem with the onions! I agree with Cher...I always do my onions on more of a medium heat and watch very closely. It will still take awhile but you should get some color. I didn't get to do this soup yet...hoping to get it done soon. I'm sure your soup still tasted very good!

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    1. Thanks for the tip, higher heat is the way to go next time. The soup was good in the end, just lacked color. Good luck with yours when you get a chance to make it.

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  4. I think we're united on the onion issue. Forget the "lowest heat" advice and follow your own experience (in my case, that's medium heat, and no history of burned onions). Maybe Dorie's onions have a higher sugar content?
    weekendviands.blogspot.com

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    1. You're right, higher heat is a better way I think.

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  5. I think you should forget lowest heat when you caramelize - all you end up doing on lowest heat is lightly sweating the onions. Seems like most everyone had this problem with Dorie's directions. Hope it works out if you try it again!

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    1. I'll try it again and definitely crank up the heat!

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  6. OMG. So glad I wasn't the only one who struggled! And I had such high hopes!

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    1. No, we weren't alone on this one! High heat next time :)

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