CREAMY ONION SOUP (MY VERSION OF BRASSERIE LE COZE'S RECIPE)

Creamy Onion Soup (my version of Brasserie Le Coze's recipe) image

Number Of Ingredients 13

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Ingredients

4 tablespoons Unsalted butter
3 cups Thinly sliced or chopped onion
7 tablespoons All purpose flour
2 cups White wine
1-1/2 teaspoons Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
6 cups Beef stock
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon Lemon juice
2 cups Heavy cream
12 slices 1/2" thick French bread, buttered and toasted
1 cup Swiss or Gruyere cheese, grated

Steps:

Melt butter in a heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions and ½ teaspoon salt, stir and cover, letting onions soften for 5 minutes. Remove lid and let onions caramelize until golden brown over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Adjust heat to low/simmer if onions are browning too quickly. [The caramelization process will take 45 to 60 minutes, so don't plan on being anywhere else for that length of time, because the onions can go from nicely browning to burnt in a heartbeat, and your craving for French onion soup will go unmet - c'est tragique! So just take your time, and enjoy the process.]
Once the onions are caramelized, make a slurry of the flour and white wine. Add the slurry, beef stock, sugar, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to the onions. Bring mixture to a simmer, then lower heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the heavy cream. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. If you don't have an immersion blender, puree in batches in a blender. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
Right before serving, take one toasted bread slice for each person being served (so if you are serving 8, you will need 8 slices of the bread), and sprinkle a little of the grated Swiss on each slice. Then toast these all in a toaster oven till the cheese is melted and a little caramelized, watching to make sure they don't burn. (I cover my toaster oven baking tray with foil and spray with Pam for easy clean-up with this step.) Put one toasted bread slice on each bowl of soup, and serve immediately.