Recipe: French Onion Soup Gratinée

1. Heat the fat in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until they reduce from their original size of 5 cups to a final 1 cup cooked onions. Toward the end of cooking time (30 minutes to an hour, depending on the pot, and heat), stir more frequently. You want some browning of the onions, but not burning which will turn the taste bitter.
2. Once the onions have reduced down in size to just 1 cup of volume, and hopefully have achieved some browning, add the stock and use a wooden spoon to scrape up brown bits from the bottom of the pan (called deglazing). *Note: If you would like to use some red wine (not on the 30 day reset) traditionally used to add depth to French onion soup, replace ½ cup of the broth with wine and add it in first, cooking for 5 minutes before adding the broth.
3. Add the thyme, salt, and pepper, stir and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes, or if using alcohol, 10 minutes to make sure the alcohol cooks out.
4. If you have ramekins*, preheat oven grill. Pour the soup while still hot into 1 two-cup ramekin or 2 one-cup ramekins, top with Gruyère cheese and set under grill for 3 to 5 minutes, or until golden brown.
5. If you don’t have ramekins, don’t worry, just add the Gruyère to the soup, and heat it thoroughly for 5 minutes or so until it is melted inside the soup and serve.

*Ramekins are little ceramic bowls that can be heated in the oven.

Enjoy!