soup · Cooking course

Serves 4

Ingredients

• Onion — 800 g, thinly sliced into half-rings
• Butter — 20 g
• Vegetable oil — 20 ml
• Soy sauce — 5 ml
• Dry white wine — 200 ml
• All-purpose flour — 20 g
• Calvados — 20 ml
• Beef stock — 100 ml

Sachet

• Thyme — 5 g
• Garlic — 1 clove
• Bay leaf — 1 pc

Toasts

• Baguette — 120 g
• Gruyère — 50 g

Instructions

1. Pour vegetable oil into a large pan and add a generous knob of butter. Start on low and add the onion. It shouldn’t fry — the oil shouldn’t sizzle. The onion should sweat.
2. When the onion shrinks down and its own moisture isn’t enough, start adding wine little by little so it sweats rather than boils.
3. Keep adding and stirring until the onion turns the colour of coffee with milk, or caramel.
4. Add the calvados; sweat.
5. Add the soy sauce; sweat.
6. Add a little flour; stir.
7. Add the beef stock; stir.
8. Make a sachet — wrap the spices in cheesecloth, tie with string, leaving a long tail. Drop it into the pot.
9. Simmer with the sachet for 20 minutes.
10. Slice the baguette into long pieces; dry them in the oven.
11. Take them out and the soup should be hot and thoroughly stirred.
12. Pile Gruyère onto the baguette; return to the oven.
13. Serve the soup with the cheese-topped baguette alongside.