The Good Food Muse: French Onion Soup a la Julia

11.02.2008

French Onion Soup a la Julia

I think I mentioned in my last post that I've been into Julia Child recently. I read her memoirs on the plane coming back from my brother's wedding in September, and I've been hooked ever since. I've purchased one of her cookbooks and rented all the episodes of her old TV show I can find on Netflix. I certainly don't agree with her on everything - mostly I think she makes everything too complex and time consuming - but overall, I really dig her. She makes cooking so delightful and fun! I have a feeling if she was alive today she would be part of the Good Food Revolution.....it's also pretty inspiring to know that she didn't even start to learn to cook until she was in her thirties.

This soup was in honor of her. It's pretty much the recipe that she makes on one of her shows.

It was also in honor of these onions - from Ed in Blue Lake. These are some of the last of his Copra onions. They're great storage onions, but he can't seem to grow enough to keep them around for long. They're such beautiful, big, perfect onions! This is definitely one farmer who could do great things with a little more land.

The onions were really big, so it only took four of them to fill my four quart soup pot.

I cooked them in butter.....and cooked them and cooked them - first at medium heat to let them soften, and then a little higher to brown them. If only I could have taken a photo of the smell! It took over an hour for them to start browning.

Once they were ready, I added a little flour and cooked it in for a few minutes, then chicken broth (left over from my last post), salt, vermouth (red cause that's what I had, although Julia says to use white.), and brandy.

With such a rich hearty soup, we needed a fresh green salad for balance. I made one up quick with arugula from John in Bayside, and peas and Sungold tomatoes from the garden - yes I finally have some tomatoes, and it's November!