French Onion Soup à la Provençal
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson for CMC 2009
One usually associates the summer heat with a cool ice-cream. But today, the heat utdoors triggered a nostalgia of growing up in the tropics and of having hot soup on a hot day. So I thought I’d look around for something nice and warm for lunch, something that would go nicely with a glass of red.
My choice fell on a traditional onion soup à la Provençal. This soup is different from the clear broths I grew up with, but it’s a fairly well-known dish in the West. It exists in numerous variations and hopefully nobody will mind if I add our version to what is already available on the internet. You’re most welcome to enjoy the recipe or take it as inspiration.
Ingredients:
4-5 Onions
1 – 1,5 liter of calf broth. Meat cubes might do instead.
1-2 cloves of garlic
10 All spices seeds
Bay leaves
Thyme
Basil
Sherry
Butter
Olive oil
Onions in warm water
When handling onions, my favourite is to soak them in hot water, which also makes them easy to peel.
Quarter the onions and stir fry them until golden brown.
At the end of the stirring I add the spices; some All Spice seeds, Bay leaves, a few cloves of garlic and a few branches of fresh thyme (nice, but you will need to pick them out later). Then I add the calf broth and a dash of sherry. Leave on medium heat until you feel it is done. 30 minutes should do but this soup actually gets better the longer it cooks. Tomorrow it will be even better.