Autumn comfort: A toast to traditional French onion soup

Julia Child wrote in her book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" that civilisation could not exist without onions. And there is certainly much truth in this, as many people cannot imagine cooking without this vegetable. It was appreciated as far back as ancient Roman times, but it is most associated with France and the iconic onion soup prepared there.

Originally, onion soup was a dish for the poorer strata of society. In 18th-century cookbooks, you can find a recipe for "à l’oignon à la paysanne," which means peasant onion soup. Over time, the soup also became popular among the aristocracy. Alexandre Dumas described the dish as consisting of fried onions, water, and croutons, although over time, the water was replaced with meat broth.

However, onion soup is not only a French speciality. It was also eagerly eaten in Britain. On the list of traditional products from the Ministry of Agriculture, you can find onion soup from Goraj, a small town in the Lublin region. The base of the dish is onions and pork bone broth, served in a creamy form.

The foundation of the soup is, of course, onion, a vegetable that comes in many varieties. Traditionally, yellow onions are used, with a sharp aroma but a slightly sweet taste that is released after prolonged cooking. The soup's flavour depends on the cooking time, and the French often fry onions on low heat, even for an hour, to extract the full aroma and ensure an intense colour for the dish. This is done on low heat so as not to burn the onions.

A key ingredient is cheese, often Gruyère, although Emmental can also be used. The broth for the soup can be beef, veal, or chicken, and white wine, cider, calvados, or brandy is added for flavour. To prepare the soup, we use onions, slicing them into strips and frying them for half an hour in clarified butter with a sprig of thyme. After browning the onions, we remove the thyme, add the white wine, cook on low heat, add the broth and cook for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, we prepare croutons from baguettes by spreading them with butter and baking them in the oven. We season the soup with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. We serve it with croutons sprinkled with Gruyère cheese and bake it in the oven until it melts. The soup can be enriched with fried bacon. You can also fry bacon slices and crumble them to create a bacon topping.

This is an ideal recipe for autumn days – it warms, satisfies, and undoubtedly puts you in a good mood.