✨ Christmas special - French onion soup 🎄

Hey Soup Enthusiast,

The Christmas countdown is well underway and it is time to prepare the menu and wow your guests with a starter they will never forget.

 Soup is one of the most popular and easy starters to make, perfect for the busy day but, there are so many soups to choose from.

Mushroom soup is a popular choice. However, this year I have chosen a soup many people have asked me about recently and this warming soup is perfect to start off the christmas dinner with a festive feeling.

🍲 French onion soup

This rich, french onion soup takes on the flavour of the beef stock which is best homemade. The onions add a sweetness and a nice texture. It is a perfect warming soup for christmas your guests will be talking about for years.

French onion soup is more time consuming to make than other soups I have created. After chopping all the onions and garlic which can take a while, it took me about 40 minutes to cook the onions. This is the secret to a great tasting french onion soup.

By cooking the onions slowly with a pinch of salt, it enfuses them with flavour. I had the onions cooking in the background and stirred them once in a while when I did something else.

When it was time to add the flour I didn’t mix it in and I added stock on top. This made the flour lumpy. I managed to take it out and save the soup but, the flour still needed adding. I took a bowl and added the flour and a little cold water then mixed it together to make a paste before adding it to the soup.

Now on to the taste test

The main flavour comes from the beef stock.

Using a stock pot works fine, like I did with this soup, however making your own beef stock would make a huge difference in flavour. Additionally, the stock pots and the pinch of salt that went in with the onions made the soup just right with the saltyness and no more salt was needed.

As salting the onions at the start is such a vital step, and stock cubes usualy have high salt content, french onion soup is the perfect excuse to make your own beef stock. 

I enjoyed the thickness of the soup, it improved its warming qualities, one of my favourite aspects of this soup. Therfore, the flour is needed to thicken it or it may be a little too thin.

The onions added a sweet but, slightly tangy flavour which worked well with the stock, they also improved the texture by adding a bite. It reminds me of onion gravy but, thinner.

I had enough soup left over to bring to work the next day and heated it up in the microwave where the aroma from the onions filled the room. Some people walked in a little later and said amongst themselves, "whats that? It smells really nice".

The side dish

To serve as a side dish we, cooked some french bread and finished it off in the grill topped with grated Emental Cheese to melt.

This was very tasty and went well with the soup, the texture of the cheese stays consistent when it was dipped into the soup.

However, a lot of recipes say to float the bread on top of the soup. I had mine on the side as I would have emagined the bread to go soggy. If you decide to try putting the bread / toast in the soup, let me know what it is like.

I would personally recommend that you give this soup a go as I enjoyed it immensely and a couple of people have said to me that French onion soup is one of their favourites.

Now lets take a look at the recipe.

If you enjoyed this soup as much as me, let me know. Rate my recipe!

 🧅 Ingredient of the week: Onion 

Fact - Onions are a base ingredient of so many recipes. Adding both sweetness and acidity to enhance the flavours of many foods.

They are less likely to be eaten by unwanted visitors in the vegetable patch, easy to grow and store all year round, making them a great choice of our ancestors during early agriculture making it a staple in our ingredient list today.

Cooking tip - Caramelizing onions is a key step in making a great french onion soup.

One tip I learned which I use every time I fry onons is to add a litle salt just as they go in the pan. It makes such a difference to the frying process and the end result.

The salt draws out the moisture in the onions which gives the onion a softer texture. It also, speeds up the frying and helps brown the onion faster leaving a deeper flavour.

You definitely want to try this tip out, trust me you will love it. : )

👩‍🍳 Today's community showcase 

Recently my Dad created a lentil and bacon soup. This soup always goes down well during the winter with its warming qualitys. If you have made a sop / sauce recently, make sure to send in your picture, recipe or tips. : )

I like to add lots of black pepper on the top as you can see in the picure, whats your favorite garnish for lentil and bacon soup?

🕵️‍♂️ Secret soup puzzle

I have memories of lots of word searches and crosswords in christmas magazines from when I was younger so I created one for this christmas edition of our soup newsletter - with a twist.

Find all the hidden ingredients in this delicious and easy to make soup. Once you have found all the words, you will have the ingredients for your next soup.

Share and comment if you find the ingredients and make sure to send us your photos if you make the soup. : )

Soups to consider

This weeks soup might not be for you. Take a look at some of these suggestions!

• 🧈 Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

•  🥫 Cauliflower and cannellini bean soup

• 🥕 Spiced carrot soup

• 🌶 Red lentil & chorizo soup

• 🍄 Mushroom and Thyme Soup

• 🧈 🍅🍚 Mulligatawny soup

• 🧈🥕 Carrot and leek soup 💲

• 🌿 Veggie Root Soup

🚀 Your turn to stir the pot 

What is your all time favourite christmas soup?

Your soup journey awaits,
Sean
Soup & Sauce

Soup & Sauce exists to make cooking accessible, fun, and a way to bring people together through delicious meals.

P.S. Share this recipe with a friend this Christmas to bring warmth, joy, and a delicious touch of magic to their table!