Soupe à L’oignon Gratinée – (aka French Onion Soup)
Now I do believe you can run to your nearest grocery store and grab a dried onion soup concoction, water and voila presto! If that strikes a warm chord with you, please go right ahead. At the Auberge we are not about to go looking for a bad habit. The recipe, simple sounding enough has more to its preparation than meets the eye. While there are many, many versions on how to make this particular soup, having reviewed several I am going to propose a modified version of JC’s Soupe à L’oignon Gratinée and will deviate in places where it would make sense to do so i.e., more generous with butter, wine, and cognac. I think it would be an injustice to so otherwise. My doctor would likely show me the way out but perhaps a good French doctor might ask if I used good cognac and was the butter demi-sel.
As I have a habit of doing, I wondered about the origins of this famous French soup.
Was there perhaps a mastermind chef behind this soupy concoction? Or was it more likely a case of someone saying “hey all I got is a bunch of onions, day old bread and stinky cheese and you invited your boss to dinner?” Mais t’est fou mon vieux! History will show that maybe there was a little bit of truth in both. The onion soup goes back as far as Roman times and was a big hit with the plebs plebis average joe’s because onions were abundant and therefore a hot item in most Roman household. According to legend, the onion soup as we know it, surfaced in France around the 17th century and was said to have been invented by Louis XV. Late at night, while at his hunting lodge, Louis realized that all he had at the lodge were some onions, butter and champagne and a few women at his feet. Undaunted, he cooked it all (minus the women) together and created the first French onion soup which was most likely served in a high heel.
One more possibility is a story that the duc de Lorraine, ex-king of Poland, Stanislas Leszczynski while traveling to Versailles stopped at a tavern and was served a soup si délicate et si soignée that he demanded (as only nobles are allowed to do) to see the chef prepare this soup before his very eyes. The cook was none other than Nicolas Appert later a famous French culinary personage in his own right who was tickled pink with the duc’s reaction (meaning he would likely keep his head) that he promptly dedicated the soup to the duc naming it “Soupe à l’oignon à la Stanislas.”
Now as I am off to the market, I leave you with what I believe to be the earliest written recipe for French onion soupe. The “Soupe à l’oignon à la Stanislas” first appeared in print (Livre de tous les ménages ou l’art de conserver pendant plusieurs années toutes les substances animales et végétales de 1831. Nicolas Appert)
« On enlève la croûte du dessus d’un pain, on la casse en morceaux que l’on présente au feu des deux côtés. Quand ces croûtes sont chaudes, on les frotte de beurre frais, et on les représente de nouveau au feu jusqu’à ce qu’elles soient un peu grillées; on les pose alors sur une assiette pendant le temps que l’on fait frire les ognons dans le beurre frais, on en met ordinairement trois gros, coupés en petits dés; on les laisse sur le feu jusqu’à ce qu’ils soient devenus d’un beau blond un peu foncé, teinte qu’on parvient à leur donner bien égale qu’en les remuant presque continuellement; on y ajoute ensuite les croûtes, en remuant toujours, jusqu’à ce que l’ognon brunisse. Quand il a suffisamment pris de couleur, pour détacher de la casserole, on mouille avec de l’eau bouillante, on met l’assaisonnement et l’eau nécessaire, puis on laisse mitonner au moins un quart d’heure avant de servir. »