Yes Virginia, I am a Food Photographer too.

French Onion Soup

Shameless plug: If you are a possible commercial client please contact me to discuss shooting your food / establishment.

It has been darn cold here in Austin.  With record lows not seen in decades and some new records set in the last few days.  I’ve also been out shooting in it at night, outside. Brrr.

So when life gives me the proverbal lemons (in the form of really cold weather)  I make French Onion Soup.  I make a lot of it.  Somewhere between 3-4 gallons of the stuff.  It’s more like onion stew with a light soup base and lots of onions.  It also take at least 6 hours to make and it makes the place smell great.

A friend in Nevada wants to see this so I take pic, toss it into post to clean it up, and here it is.

• The oven is really dirty but the dirty racks help keep the reflections down – a benefit.
• Single strobe, w/ stofen, using Nikon CLS,  -1.3 ev.
• Strobe is just ahead and to the top left of the lens.
• Shot with a d300s, Tamron 17-50mm dx lens at 32mm, iso 200, f/10, 50th sec.
• The red towel, which was in actual use was added to the front of the rack to cover up some of the rack and to balance the image.

How to make this:

• 3 liters of cheap white wine, and a bottle of good stuff for the cook.
• 10 pounds of white or sweet white onions. (Texas Sweet Onions are the best!)
• 1/2 cup honey
• Soup stock (chicken or veggie or both)
• Water
• Spare veggies sitting in the fridge.
• Spices ( a touch of oregano and garlic are nice)
• Large loaf of bread, baguette or sourdough loaf.
• Two types of cheese.  About a pound or more.  More is good.  Today it was Jarlesburg and Gouda.  If you only have one type of cheese then eating this will be more exciting as you will have stringy melted cheese to deal with!  Using two or more different types of cheese cuts the stringiness.  No Velveta or cheddar.

Get your stock going. You know how to make stock or read the label.  I don’t like the cubes and prefer the “Better than Boullion” brand of stocks.

Make about 8 quarts of stock to start with.  Today I make it with half chicken and half veggie stock. Toss in all the almost expired veggies in your fridge into the stock and anything else that inspires you.  Today it was green beens and carrots.

Get that boiling mildly for about 2-4 hours stiring ocassinally. When the stock is reduce about a 1/3 add your 3 liters of white wine to it and let it go another hour or two at a mild boil.

Onions: Slice them up. Rinse, peel,  and place in favorite onion cutting device.  Using a Cuisinart is almost a necessity unless you can get somone to evenly slice 10 pounds.  I’ve done it by hand, yuck.  As you slice the onions place them into a very large stock pot.  After the first couple pounds are sliced add 1/2 cup of honey to add a little sweetness and to really help the carmalization process along.   Place on medium to medium-low heat and don’t burn them.  If you do, remove the burn pieces and lower the heat.  It will take about 4-5 hours to reduce a pot brimming with sliced onions down to a large cantelope ball of creamy. carmelized onions.  This is not a fast recipe.

Go have a glass of wine.

Grate the cheese.  If you are using a very soft gouda or other soft cheese toss it in the freezer for 20 minutes before grating.  Place the grated cheese in the fridge until ready to use.

Stir stuff ocassionally. Don’t burn the onions!

After 4-6 hours place a strainer over the nicely carmelized onions and strain the stock into the onion pot.

Add spices here if desired.

Toss (or compost) the contents of the strainer.

Get the whole mixture to a mild boil then turn it off, cover and let it cool for a little while.

Slice the bread if needed – around 1/2 inch is good.  Toast the bread on both sides, you want it dry but still a tiny bit soft.  If it’s brittle it will still work.  Sure. you could have done this after grating the cheese too.

Working with some deep corning ware or similar deep casserole-type dishes layer about 1/3-1/2 with the soup.  Loosely cover in a layer of toasted bread and sprinkle a tiny bit of cheese on the toast.  repeat with another layer of soup.  Save room at the top for another layer of toast and a nice solid layer of cheese.

Repeat for other containers.  If you have shallower dishes then don’t do the middle layer of toast.

Now you have a bunch of containers of soup.

Set oven to 325.  Bake covered for about 25 minutes , then uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes until the tops of cheese are  bubbly and slightly browned.  See pic 

If you have removed this from the fridge, then give it 45-50 minutes in the oven covered,  then uncover for another 10-15 minutes.

Remove and let cool at least 10 minutes.  These will be HOT.  The cheese acts as a blanket.

I put two in the freeze one in the fridge and one in the oven.  Thaw at least a full day in the warmer part of your fridge then bake as instructed.

Enjoy!