Dear Eric: I have a recipe request for an onion soup made with champagne. I made this for my husband many years ago and have since lost the recipe. I recall it called for a full bottle of champagne. Any ideas for this?
Barb Zinter
Dear Barb: I love onion soup and have made numerous versions of it over the years. But I can’t ever recall making or seeing a recipe for one that called for any champagne, let alone a whole bottle of it.
Most French-style onion soups I’ve read about and made are all about the generous amount of slowly cooked onions swimming in the bowl. Not to mention the filling bread topping mounded with melted and tangy Swiss styles of cheese.
Yes, of course, there is liquid, but most often a full flavoured stock is the lead player, with a modest amount of wine and/or brandy also providing some flavour, but not always. For example, in a recipe I found for onion soup gratinée Lyonnaise penned by culinary legend Jacques Pepin, not a drop of wine is added.
I also think of onion soup as being more budget-friendly, bistro-style fare, and that would not be the case if you poured a whole bottle of real Champagne into it.
To be called Champagne, the wine must be made in the Champagne region of France following strict rules of production. It’s in high demand and pricy, costing around seventy dollars and up for a 750-milliltre bottle, so you would almost have to be a king to afford to use it in soup.
I set out to do some research into the history of onion soup, and guess what? Lore suggests it was indeed a king who invented it and, when it was first made, something very bubbly went into the pot.
The story goes that late one night King Louis XV, who ruled France for much of the 1700s, got stranded at a hunting lodge. In that lodge, all he found for nourishment were onions, butter and champagne and, the story goes, he made a soup with them.
Whether or not that story is true, it being set in the 18th century does align with when some historians say the styles of French onion we enjoy today were first simmered.
I decided to make a small batch of onion soup where the only liquid added was B.C. brut (dry) sparkling wine made using the Champagne method, or méthode Champenoise. That wine was about a third of the price of real Champagne, but still tasted quite lovely.
But after my soup simmered and I tried it, I didn’t care for it. The taste of sparkling wine dominated, so it was more like sparkling wine soup, rather than onion soup.
So I made a few more batches, where the sparkling wine, and also the Prosecco (Italian sparkling wine) I tried, was used in combination with some stock. The results were much more appealing, with the bread, cheese, stock and that style of wine making the soup almost taste like cheese fondue. If you want to try the recipe, it’s below.
Onion Soup with Sparkling Wine for Two
Serve this soup on a rainy night with a glass of the sparkling wine you used to flavour it.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: About 35 minutes
Makes: two generous servings
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 cups onion slices (about 2 small to medium white or yellow onions, cut in half and thinly sliced)
1 medium garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups brut (dry) sparkling wine or dry Prosecco
1/4 tsp dried tarragon or thyme
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 to 6 (one-centimetre thick) slices of baguette, toasted (see Note)
1 cup (or more) grated Swiss or emmental cheese
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
Place the butter and oil in a small- to medium-sized pot set over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until very tender, caramel-like and sticky, about 10 minutes.
Stir in the garlic and mustard and cook a few seconds more. Mix in the wine, stock and tarragon (or thyme) and bring the soup to a gentle simmer.
Simmer the soup 20 minutes, and then season with salt and pepper.
Set an oven rack 15 centi-metres beneath your oven’s broiler. Divide and ladle soup into two large, onion soup bowls, and then set them on a baking sheet. Set and nestle two or three slices of baguette on top of each soup, and then top the bread with the cheese.
Broil the soup, a minute or two, until the cheese is melted and light golden. Sprinkle each soup with some parsley and serve.
Note: To toast the baguette slices, place on a baking sheet and bake in a 400 F oven for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly toasted.
Eric Akis’s new cookbook, The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook (Appetite by Random House), comes out March 31. Eric’s columns appear Wednesday and Sunday.
