French Onion Soup

When it comes to difficult cuisines, French is quite possibly even harder than Italian to do GFCF, what with all the pastry and cream sauces and cheeses… but there is one staple that is quite easy to adapt: French onion soup!

.

We start with, of course, onions. I prefer yellow, but you could make this with white onions as well. I chose to use four of them because a couple of mine were on the small side; three large ones would work fine too.

.

Slice them thinly (or slightly less thin if you’re lazy like me,) with maybe one cut across the middle so you don’t end up with any hugely long strands. It ain’t French onion spaghetti.

.

Now we’re going to throw them all in the bottom of a large soup pot, and add 1/4 cup grapeseed oil (or whatever quality cooking oil you prefer, grapeseed just happens to be extremely mild in flavor.)

.

Sprinkle in 1 teaspoon of sugar, and sautee them slowly until they’re very well done, at least 15 minutes. You want those suckers to be deep golden and as translucent as possible. Don’t be afraid to add a little more oil if necessary.

.

When they’re ready, gently mix in 1 Tablespoon of tapioca starch and stir it around until it’s nice and pasty, thoroughly blended with the pan juices. I know the bag says “flour” in a bigger font than “starch,” but trust me, no one ever calls it tapioca flour. It functions the same as corn starch and potato starch, so that’s what we call it.

.

Measure out 2 1/2 cups of Pacific Foods beef broth. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] Pour this into the soup pot, along with another 2 1/2 cups of water.

.

While it’s true that “do as I say, not as I do” is not the most effective parenting technique, it’s not such a bad thing for cooking blogs. I have to admit that I cut a corner here, and it turned out to be a big mistake. But I make this soup rather infrequently, so I figured I’d just own up and tell you the right way to do it, rather than wait until I got around to making it again. What you want to be pouring into your pot right now is 1/2 cup of dark red wine. I used this rosé wine bottle that I happened to already have open (hey, at least it was a French wine!) and like I said, it didn’t work. This soup really needs the rich depth of a merlot or at least a pinot noir.

.

See? It doesn’t even look like French onion soup, it’s so light. It’s just non-ethnic onion soup, I guess. But I know you will not be so reckless with your ingredients as I, and your soup will look and taste like mine normally does, which is to say delicious. Bring it to a boil and continue simmering for 10-15 minutes. Aside from maturing the flavors, this is what will boil off your alcohol content, by the way, making it fit for child consumption.

.

Toast a slice of gluten-free bread, and you can even do that little floaty crust thing the French folks like to do. You could sprinkle a little Daiya on top too, if you need the full experience, but I like it just like this.

.

Happy Eating!

.

French Onion Soup

3-4 onions
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
2 1/2 cups Pacific Foods beef broth
2 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup red wine