No. 331

Onion Soup with Parmesan Cheese Browned, and Thickened Onion Soup

(Soupe a l'Oignon et au Parmesan Gratine et Soupe a l'Oignon liee).

Cut into small eighth of an inch squares, two medium or four ounces of onions, fry them in butter and moisten with two quarts of broth, adding a bunch of parsley garnished with chervil, bay leaf and a clove of garlic; season with a little salt, pepper and some meat extract; boil for twenty minutes, then remove the bouquet, and pour the soup over very thin slices of bread placed in a metal soup tureen, in intervening layers of bread and cheese, parmesan, finishing with the parmesan, and sprinkle a little over the top of the soup. Bake in a hot oven.

Onion Soup Thickened.—To prepare onion soup cut up two medium onions, mince them finely, and fry them colorless in butter, adding two dessertspoonfuls of flour, and cooking it a few moments with the onions, then dilute with two quarts of broth. Season with pepper and a little salt, boil for ten minutes, and just when ready to serve thicken the soup with raw egg-yolks diluted in cream, and a little fine butter. Pour the soup over round, thin slices of bread, about one inch and a quarter in diameter, dried in the oven.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Two soups in one entry: a gratinéed onion soup baked under Parmesan, and a lighter version bound with flour and an egg-cream liaison. Both live or die on the broth, since neither uses enough onion to carry the soup alone.

The broth is the dishFour ounces of onion in two quarts of liquid is a fraction of what a modern French onion soup uses, and there is no long browning stage. Ranhofer assumed a real veal or beef stock on hand; with water and a bouillon cube you will get thin, salty results.
"Meat extract"A reduced glace de viande or a commercial concentrate such as Bovril or a demi-glace paste. Add it a teaspoon at a time and salt only after, since these are already salty.
Hot ovenFor the gratin, 425–450F, on an upper rack, until the cheese is browned and blistered — 10 to 15 minutes. A brief pass under the broiler at the end finishes it if the top is still pale.
DessertspoonfulAbout two teaspoons, so the thickened version takes roughly four teaspoons of flour to two quarts of broth. That is a very light binding; expect a soup with body, not a velouté.
The liaison must not boilYolks slaked with cream go in off the heat, at the last moment. Temper them with a ladle of hot soup first and keep the pot below a simmer, or the soup will curdle into threads. Ranhofer adds the butter at the same point, with the yolks and cream.
Parmesan, and how muchGrate it fine and use it generously between the bread layers — figure a cup or more for two quarts. Pre-grated cheese in tubs contains anti-caking starch and browns poorly; buy a wedge.
BreadThin slices, staled or oven-dried so they hold their shape under two quarts of liquid. The 1¼-inch rounds for the thickened soup are garnish croutons, floated a few per bowl, not a raft.
VesselA "metal soup tureen" here means a flameproof, ovenproof serving pot. Any Dutch oven or individual gratin bowls work; glazed earthenware that has not been heated gradually may crack under a 450F oven.
YieldTwo quarts serves eight as a first course, six as a light supper.

A Little History

This is from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and the pairing of two treatments in one entry is characteristic of the book. Gratinée means finished under browned cheese, liée simply means bound or thickened. Onion soup was for centuries a poor man's dish in France, cheap onions and stale bread stretched with broth; its association with the porters and night workers of Les Halles in Paris is traditional rather than documented, and by Ranhofer's day the gratinéed version had already been absorbed into restaurant cooking. Note that he uses Parmesan rather than the Gruyère most cooks now expect, and much less onion than a modern recipe.