Julia Child's French Onion Soup Makeover

I'm not a big Julia Child fan, but I guess I owe a lot to her. Her T.V show and cookbooks were some of the first of their kind. She revolutionized American cooking. In a way she has affect us all; maybe your mother or grandmother had her books or watch her show. So many of the T.V chefs we love to watch learned by her example and worked with her. She took high end cooking out of the restaurants and brought it to the middle class table.  I loved the movie Julie and Julia, it does a great job of show casing Julia Child's life - the side many of us may not know - the blogosphere world, which gives hope to all of us food bloggers. As much as I respect this woman and her work, I don't care for some of her cooking methods; of course she is not to blame. She knows what she knows from the French cooking school. However, those don't translate well here. For example, cooking with lots of butter does add lots of flavor, but the French also walk more then we do and their relationship with food is different from ours. We really could learn a few things from French life styles verse just their recipes. Also, many of her recipes were intended from the stay at home wife and mom who could slave at the stove all day. I'm a wife and mom, and I'm all for the slow food movement, but sometimes when life is busy or baby is screaming her head off the slow method doesn't work. Nonetheless, here is my owed to the great woman Julia Child was and to bringing the art of cooking back into American kitchens. 

I was looking through Amazon Primes T.V show selection and came upon The French Chef - the entire collection of shows. The first episode I watched was her one on French Onion Soup. I love a good bowl of French Onion soup. It's perfect on a cold day and when you feel a bit under the weather. I didn't know that French Onion soup had flour in it (of course it does, everything does). So I set out to make it gluten free. I kept to what Julia did with her recipe and her methods, I just improved upon it for those of us in the food allergy community. No packets of onion soup here, the from scratch method is very simple.


French Onion Soup
3lbs onions halved and sliced thin
2 Tbs butter or Earth Balance Vegan Spread
1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
6 cups beef stock (see recipe below for homemade)
3Tbs Tapioca starch 
Salt and Pepper to taste
Gluten Free bread that toasts well ( I used Udi)
Poached eggs (1 per person)
Swiss Cheese or Parmesan (optional) 
2 cups Wine or vermouth (optional)

In a stock pot or large sauce pan, big enough for 6 cups of liquid, over medium heat, heat up butter or vegan spread and oil, I used more oil then butter to make it a bit healthier. Add onions and dash or two of salt. Put a lid on the pot and let the onions become soft. Once onions are soft turn up the heat to medium high and let the onions brown, you'll have to stir the onions every few minutes to keep them from burning. Once onions are completely brown add the tapioca starch and stir around with the onions till the starch is brown. Turn down heat and add stock. Add the wine or vermouth if you desire at this point and continue to cook for several more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serves 6. 

Julia served hers with toast and a poached egg with cheese and many restaurants do the same so this is how to serve it up Julia style. I have to admit I didn't know how to properly poach an egg till I watched this episode.


Poached Egg Method
Eggs
2Tbs vinegar


In a sauce pan heat up some water, DO NOT add salt. Let the water come to a boil. Take the eggs still in their shell and gently boil them for 10 seconds, not a second more. Remove and bring the water down to a barely a simmer. Add vinegar to the water. Crack eggs just above the waters surface and gently add them to the water. Let them cook until the yoke is just set, they should be a firm to the touch. Remove eggs and put them into a bowl of cold water to rise off the vinegar. 

According to Julia you can poach eggs the night before, just keep them in the bowl of cold water then just warm them up in the morning in some warm water. This would be great for busy mornings.


Here is how you put the bowls of soup with bread and eggs together.

Put the toast and poached egg into a bowl and pour over soup. If you desire add cheese. You can just stir in the cheese or set it just on top and melt it under the broiler in your oven till melted and slightly brown. If you melt the cheese under the broiler make sure you are using oven safe bowls. Enjoy!

Homemade Stock
Soup bones or left over bones
Left over vegetable pieces
Salt
Pickling Spices
Miso paste (optional) 

The best tip I ever learned about stock was to use left overs. Take old bones from roasts, ham, or the back bone from chickens and put them in a freezer bag and freeze. Do the same thing with vegetables. Take the parts you would normally throw away like the cores of cabbage and other like vegetables and also freeze them. When you have built up a good collection of scraps throw them into a large stock pot with enough water to cover, add a couple tablespoons of salt, pickling spice, and miso paste. Boil the whole concoction for a few hours. Once done strain out the big parts with a colander then strain out the small parts with a mesh colander or cheese cloth. Store or freeze or use right away.