French Onion Soup, Part 1

The weather has turned chilly here in Nice. The coming of the cooler temps (and with everyone coughing around me) inspired me to try my hand at preparing soup in my petite cuisine. Searching the Internet revealed a million recipes. Some of the recipes were quite elaborate. Some recipes were geared towards the chef who has no time to cook. Some of the recipes required the use of chicken stock, while others required the use of either a beef or vegetable stock.

Given my petite kitchen is sparsely furnished with cooking utensils, I decided to try the recipe written for the chef who has no time to cook, which entailed using bullion cubes in lieu of real home made stock.  After preparing my shopping list of the ingredients necessary for my “quick-n-easy” soup, I was off to the supermarket.

The recipe called for Gruyere cheese as the desired topping, but when I checked the cheese section, there seemed to be every brand of cheese but Gruyere. The recipe stated I might substitute Gruyere with Swiss cheese. Interestingly, there was no Swiss cheese either. So, I decided to be daring and try the Provolone Piquant which was available in abundance!

Next came the search for the dry red wine. The selection of wines at the supermarket is enormous. With my tiny budget in mind, I selected an inexpensive Bordeaux and made my way to the check out line.

It was an interesting experience to cook without proper utensils such as a measuring cup! Although I checked while at the grocery store, there were none available. So, I had to rely on “eyeball” measurements using one of the mugs from the cabinet.

The next task was chopping six onions and a few cloves of garlic on the tiniest chopping board ever made!! While engaged in my chopping task, the bullion cubes were fast becoming my “quick-n-easy” soup stock. The longest part of the preparing of the soup is the cooking of the onions until they caramelize. Eventually, the onions began to comply and “caramelize.” Then as the recipe instructed, I combined caramelized onions, garlic, dry red wine, and stock and allowed them to simmer for a half hour.

The result? I found the soup a little on the salty side, but it was tasty! The grated Provolone Piquant over toasted bread turned out to be a delightful topping!!!