French onion soup

I'd enjoy your discussions! Anything to do with food - its provenance, growing it, preparing it, cooking it, presenting it, tasting it!

I once spent half an hour with a friend discussing how best to caramelise the onions. He was a bit of a foody and I love cooking. Our respective partners thought we were mad I think the idea of adding a little sugar is to start the process. I prefer patience but I am now not able to eat onions at all - because of the natural sugar which seems very, very unfair!

No problem Pippa, some recipes even like to add sugar, but I don't.

Oops, sorry Ellianne, I should have read your post.

There is a huge amount of sugar in onions (fructans) and that is what makes it such a lovely soup. I think you could finish it off in a soup makers if you wanted to but the reason yours was tasty was that you spent time caramelising the sugars in the onions.

The sweetness of the onion comes from the caramelisation at the beginning. (25 mins with butter).
The next 25 minutes is handed over to the onions picking up the flavour from the stock and white wine.
Two separate processes.

I make French onion soup at least once a week in a pan. I use my slow cooker a lot of the time but I think my Crockpot would make the soup watery.

Try it! Onions are strange things. Slow cooking makes them sweeter. I have no idea on the chemistry behind it.

I know it’s not Gruyère but M&S cheesy garlic bread slices are pretty damn good!