This is just a plain,
ordinary, yellow-skinned onion, but it made
a French soup famous: <i> soupe à l'oignon.</i> And here it is,
hot out of the oven, bubbling and rich and brown and filled with cheese and laced
with good French brandy. And I'm just gonna
serve you some so you'll see how it looks. Ah! How it smells so good. We're doing<i>
soupe à l'oignon</i> gratinée next time on<i> The French Chef.</i> ♪ This is<i>
soupe à l'oignon</i> gratinée. I'm just putting a lot
of cheese on the top of it. And then the little bit
of oil goes on. And then it's gonna go
into the oven, and it's gonna bake
so all the cheese melts. And it's gonna come out
wonderfully browned and beautiful smelling. We're doing "Making Your Own Onion Soup" today on<i> The French Chef.</i> ♪ ANNOUNCER: The French Chef <i>
is made possible by a grant</i> <i> from Hills Bros. Coffee,
Incorporated</i> <i> and a grant from
the Polaroid Corporation.</i> Welcome to<i> The French Chef.</i> I'm Julia Child. Whenever you do
French onion soup, you just need
an awful lot of onions. And if you're gonna have
an awful lot of sliced onions, you've got to have
a good, sharp knife. And the kind of knife
that is used by most professionals
for chopping is wedge-shaped,
and it's called a chef's knife. And this one,
which I like very much 'cause it's so nice and heavy that it does most of the work
for you, has a blade 11 inches long, but you can use
a shorter knife, like this, which is seven and a half
inches long. But if you have
these two sizes-- 11 and seven and a half inches-- you can slice and chop up
just about anything you want. And whenever you have a... When you're going to buy knives,
you have to be sure that you get a knife
that will cut. You often hear people say that a knife is supposed
to hold an edge, but if you watch your butcher and he's always sharpening
his knife all the time, you know that you can't get
a knife that will hold an edge. What you want is just a knife
that will take an edge, a knife that you can sharpen. And I found that the knives
that you can sharpen the best are plain, old-fashioned,
rustable steel called carbon steel,
and that's what these are. These are French ones,
and I've had them for an awfully long time,
but you can now buy them in quite a few
of the import shops or many hardware
and kitchenware stores. And if you can't seem to find
what you want, ask your butcher, 'cause he'll know where
to get good knives. And again,
if you watch your butcher, you notice that he's always
sharpening his knife. And to do that,
he uses a butcher's steel. And be sure when you
get yourself a butcher's steel, get a great, big,
heavy-duty one. This has a steel
that's 12 inches long, and it has a guard up here, and that is so that when
you're holding the steel and you sharpen the knife, you won't come in there
and just cut your hand off. And then it has a handle
and a thing to hang it up by. I got this at my hardware store, and it cost
just about two dollars. And when you sharpen it, you go on each side
of the steel, and your knife you raise
at about a 20-degree angle. See, just about like that. And you come down and up. Down and up.
Always at the 20-degree angle. And then you take on
the other side, sharpening the other side of it, which is down and up,
this kind of a movement. And if your knife is very dull, you can go, sort of,
one or two times on each side and then finish off like this. And then the knife is so sharp
that when you feel it, it feels very sharp. And also, if you just lay it
on top of a tomato, just the weight of the knife
will cut through the tomato. Or if you laid it over your hand
and just drew it across, the weight would cut your hand
right down to the bone. In other words,
a knife is a tool, and it's got to be very sharp. And they're really your life
in your kitchen because it makes them... it's so much easier to cook
if you have sharp knives. In fact, I find, usually,
when I go visiting and I'm asked to cook,
I can't find any sharp knives, so I always take my own with me. So I conclude that not many
householders have sharp knives, but they're so easy to sharpen, and they're not very expensive. But when you do get good knives
and keep them nice and sharp, you really have to care for them
like a baby. After you finish cutting
with them, you should immediately
wash them by hand. And the carbon steel ones
stain quite easily. I've got one here that I rubbed
with lemon juice, and it just looks awful,
but it's very easy to clean. You just take some steel wool
and dampen it, just very slightly,
wring it out, and take some scouring powder and put it
on the side of the sink or in a little jar, and then just rub it
over the knife, hard. You see, all that stain
has come out. That's just lemon juice, but if you let the knife
sit around with something like that on it, it will immediately stain. But as you can see,
it cleans off very easily. And then put it under water,
but be sure... Get into the habit of always having the blunt edge
against your hand. If you have the sharp edge, you can just cut your hand
right in two. So get in the habit of that, of using the tool correctly, and then dry it off. You don't ever want to put
a good knife in a dishwasher, and you don't ever want
to wash it in the sink with a whole lot
of other instruments, because if you do, other things
will bang against the edge and break it off. And for that very same reason, you don't want to leave it
lying loose in your drawer. Use either a knife box
or a knife holder, or what's awfully good are these magnetic knife holders
like this. See, it just sticks
on the wall like that. And this one's
a very strong one. This is both
for tools and knives. They have some
rather fancy-looking ones that aren't as strong as this,
but be sure you get one that is both
for tools and knives, and then you'll find that
your knife will just stay on, and you'll never
have any trouble about hurting the edge. And then, when you're
gonna chop onions, once you got your sharp knife, you want to be able
to chop things very fast, like this. See how fast that goes? And there your onions
are all in slices. This is something
that you have to practice on. And I'll show you how
you start out. You take your onion,
and you cut it through at the root end, like that. And then you lay it flat, and you take a few little slices
off the root and a few little slices
off the stem end. And then, laying it flat again,
there's your thumb at one end, and put your fingers
at the other end. And your fingernails
are bent back, and there are your knuckles
sticking out a little bit, and those act as a guide. And your knife you hold
with your thumb and your forefinger
on the top of the blade and your fingers gripping
around the handle. And you don't put your finger
on top of a blade. You have it under the blade. This may seem
a little bit awkward at first, but the object of this
is that your knife should be an extension
of your hand, and if you have your finger
on it like that, you don't have
quite as much wrist movement as you do when you're this way. So practice holding it this way, and in about several days,
it will feel convenient. And then, when you chop,
you come straight down, like that, and out. You see, now,
I'm coming straight down and then pushing out
a little bit. That's the reason
you have this wedge shape. You see, I'm coming
against my knuckle like that, and then with my thumb, see, I'll push my fingers back
a little bit at each chop. That's why you have your thumb,
'cause that guides you. There. I'll do another one.
There's the cut side down. And then cut off
this little root end, and then cut off
the little stem end. And then,
bracing it with your thumb and your fingers pointed back
and your knife held this way, come straight down. You'll have to start
doing slowly at first and then gradually get faster
and faster and faster, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast,
like that. You see, if you have really
mastered your knife-- and this will probably take you
maybe a week or maybe two-- you can really plow through all two or three pounds
of onions in really... five minutes or less. But these are
the kinds of things, if you're going to... if you're
gonna do any serious cooking, this is the dog work
that you should... that you should
practice on and get, so that you can do it
just as fast as possible. Because then you won't be upset if you have a recipe that says
that you have to have eight cups of
thinly sliced onions. It's very easy to do,
and you rather enjoy it, because it's something
that you enjoy, take a pride in. See now, as soon as the... as soon as the... I'm finished, I dry the knife. And be sure to dry it also,
that way, so that the sharp end
is away from you. And now, we're gonna have... We're gonna do onion soup
for six to eight people so we want
five to six cups of onions. And that would be
one and a half to two pounds of yellow onions. And you notice, that I was
chopping those onions and I didn't cry at all. And I think that's... one
of the main reasons is because I've got this great sharp knife and it cuts right through
the onions, and so they don't splatter. If I had a dull knife, the onion juice would
splatter up into my eyes. And now, after you've
cut all the onions, you can get the onion's taste off your hands very easily. Wash them first in cold water, rinse them off, and then sprinkle about
a teaspoon of salt in your wet hands and
then rub the salt in. And wash it off and then
wash it again in warm water. And if you find that you
still have a little bit of onion on your hands,
just repeat the process, but I think you'll
find that this will get all the onion off very easily. And now, when you've got
all of your onions chopped up, you're going to then cook them. And this soup calls
for browned onions. And we have five... five to six cups for six people. And we're gonna cook them in oil and butter. I'm gonna put in about
a tablespoon of cooking oil and about two tablespoons of butter. And then, in go the onions. And now, these,
I think you'll find with this onion soup, if you're
gonna make it all yourself, you're gonna get much the best
flavor if you use fresh onions. 'Cause you want to get them...
I mean, it's onion soup, so you've got to get the
most flavor that you can. And then you want
to stir the onions around until they're fully covered
with your oil and butter. And then, to brown onions,
you do it in two steps. The first one is called,
in French,<i> étuvée,</i> which means cooking the onions
until they're tender. And then, after you've cooked
them until they're tender, then you brown them. But to do this<i> étuvée,</i>
or cooking until tender, you cook them over moderate
heat with a cover on for about 20 minutes until
they're tender and translucent. 'Cause if you tried to brown
the onions right now, you would have browned,
sort of raw onions and they wouldn't
taste very good. So when you're doing the onions, this part takes somewhat
of a long time. But it's this, if you're making
your own onion soup, which is so very important
just to brown them... brown them properly. So cook them covered
for about 20 minutes and then, when they're done... they've cooked down. And see, the difference those five or six cups
now have cooked down to about, say,
about a cup and a half. And they're nice and tender
and you could, at this point, you could use
the onions to make... to make a white onion soup
if you wanted to. And then when they've
cooked down this way, you are ready to brown them. And for that, you set them
over moderately high heat, and it's gonna take you about 20 to 30 minutes
to brown them properly. And to help them brown,
you add a little pinch of sugar and you also add some salt. And I left the salt
way over here while I was washing my hands. You don't want very much sugar, but just this little tiny bit.
About, say, half to a quarter
of a teaspoonful. The sugar will caramelize, and then that helps
the onions to brown. And then we'll put in
about a teaspoon of salt. And then you have to
keep stirring them... fairly frequently,
so, in other words, when you're cooking them,
stay quite near them. And you'll notice,
as they start browning, they will begin attaching a little bit
to the bottom of the pan. Be sure that you have
a heavy-bottom pan, otherwise, if you
have a thin-bottom pan, you'll find that the onions
will burn on the bottom. Then you just keep
stirring them around, and finally, they will brown
and look like this. And this is amazing. I'll take that... these things out,
so you can see. But look at... how little there are
of those onions that you started out with,
with five or six cups, 'cause there's
so much water in them. And so, when you have
your onions browned like this, you could use them
for all kinds of other things, say, smothering steaks
or hamburgers in onions. And these are just perfectly
delicious just the way they are. And now we're ready to start making a soup out of them. And we want, first, to have about three tablespoons
of flour in, 'cause this gives the soup
a little body and thickening. So that's one heaping tablespoon and one level tablespoon and that makes
three tablespoons. And this you want to cook... over, sort of, moderate heat. And if you find that you don't
have quite enough butter in, just add a little bit more, because you want to make
a paste out of it, 'cause you
want to cook the flour and brown it lightly. And this, also,
you don't want to... you want to do rather slowly, so that you browned it nicely. I think I have my heat a little
bit too high there now. And this, you would cook
about two or three minutes. I'm not gonna do the whole
thing, but when you do it, you cook it for two
or three minutes until the flour slowly browns. And then you're ready to add
the liquid to it. And if you're gonna do
onion soup yourself, it would be too bad
to use canned stock with it, because it has beef stock. If you had canned stock,
then it would taste just like canned onion soup, so you might just
as well have started out with canned onion soup
in the first place. And so you'd have
a homemade stock, and this is a great mixture of beef shanks and chicken necks and water and vegetables. And this is simmered
for five or six hours and it looks awful,
but it's perfectly delicious. And I want to have about six cups in all. But I'm just gonna
put in a little bit first and then stir it around
to make sure that it's blended nicely
with the flour, and also so that
I've scraped up all the brown... sort of brown onion juices
in the bottom of the pan. As a matter of fact,
I think I should stir that up with a wire whip
to make sure that the flour's all mixed up nicely. And then the rest of the... the rest of the stock goes in, about six cups. And if you're gonna
make a stock yourself... We've done a lot of them. Particularly, I remember
a great turkey stock. Just save all the bones
and things, and then buy a little bit
of fresh meat, and all you need to do
is just to put water and carrots and onions
and celery and salt in, and then just simmer it. And then you come up with
a perfectly beautiful stock. And then set this over heat and
let it bring up to the simmer. And this is...
and then, this, of course, is now only browned
onions and beef stock. But you want to add some
little French touches, such as wine and herbs. And you can use either
white wine or red wine. And I'm gonna use some
California mountain red wine and put in just
about a cup there. I don't know if that
is quite a cup. I'll put in a little bit more,
but it's all gonna cook down. And then put in some herbs like a bay leaf,
and I'm gonna use about a half a teaspoon
of powdered sage. And then that is to cook
very slowly. You don't even need to cover it--
you can partially cook it. But let it cook very slowly
for 30 or 40 minutes to get all the flavor out. And, now, if you were using canned or dehydrated
onion soups-- and there's some awfully
good ones on the market-- just follow
the package directions. And then when you've
rehydrated it or heated it up, then to add
your own touches to it. Then put in some wine
and bay leaf and herbs and let that simmer
for 20 or 30 minutes, 'cause you have to
when you're using wine. You have to let it cook out. And then let it simmer until it's... until it tastes
perfectly delicious, because it's cooked down. And that's all there is
to the cookings. And be sure, then, before you're ready to serve it, that you've very,
very carefully tasted it and it has
just the right amount of salt and pepper
and everything else. And you can do it
way ahead of time and just let it sit,
if you want. And you can serve it
perfectly plain, just as it is. Just serve it in soup cups with
some French bread and cheese. Or if you want
to be very French, you will serve croûtes with it. And croûtes are spelled
"C" for "crust" R-O-U-T-E-S. And that's just what they are. They're little crusts
of toasted French bread, which are sort of
nice and crisp, sort of hard,
toasted French bread. And they're perfectly delicious. And I think they add a great
deal to French onion soup. Now, we're going to slice... Just take some
homemade-type white bread-- French bread, if possible-- and cut it into one-inch slices. I'll just make four of these. And then place it
on a baking sheet. And then you bake it
in a 325 oven for 15 minutes on each side. And what I like to do is to take
a little light olive oil and paint each side of them with a little oil. And that just seems to give them
a little better flavor. And that's just half an hour
in a 325 oven, and they're all made. And they come out
just like that. And I always make
quite a few extra ones, because they're just...
because they're so good. But what we're gonna do
also with these croûtes is to make onion soup gratinée. And you can... This is gonna
be baked in the oven. You can use any kind
of a casserole baking dish, soufflé dish,
whatever you like. This is a French
earthenware casserole, which is sort of typical, so I'm gonna use that. Now, this, we will say
that this soup has simmered for 30 or 40 minutes
and is perfect in every respect. And so you could serve it
in this casserole I have, but I'm just gonna be fancy
and put it in the earthenware casserole. There goes all the onion in. And then you can add
some more French touches, such as a little bit of cognac, about two
or three tablespoons. That certainly wouldn't
ever hurt any soup at all, and that all cooks down. And then you can add some more. And this is particularly useful
if you're doing... using boughten soup. Take a raw onion and grate that. And you'd think
you had enough onions in, but this little grated raw onion adds that je ne sais quoi. And then... So it'll be cheesy
and sticky, you know, so that when you lift it up,
it springs out. Take some Swiss cheese
and just slice it. Well, this is probably about...
I'll use about two ounces and slice it through
with the grater. And that goes in. And that's gonna give it that,
sort of, nice, stringy quality. And then just take
your toasted croûtes, and they go on top. And then the cheese
goes on top. And this, you would
use a combination of grated Swiss cheese
and Parmesan cheese. And be sure that you put
a big, thick layer on, like about half an inch. And be sure that you get
all the toast covered, 'cause when it goes
into the oven, if you don't have
all the toast covered, it's going to...
some of the toast will burn. And then take
a little bit of olive oil or melted butter
and pour that over the cheese. And that helps it brown. And then... This should be done
just at the last minute. And then you're ready
to put it into the oven. And this bakes
in a 350-degree oven. And this bakes
for just about half an hour. And I have one here
that's been baked for just about half an hour. Out she comes. You see,
that's all bubbling nicely. But the cheese
hasn't browned very much, so then you put it
under the broiler for just about a minute until... just to brown the cheese
very lightly. My gosh, this is so hot, I better use some pot holders. I tried thinking that
I could both brown the cheese at the same time
as baking it in the oven the other day, and I put one
in a 425-degree oven and found that
it bubbled up so much that all the croutons,
sort of got... had a tumbled effect,
so that didn't work at all. So, you have to do it
in two stages. And now, while this
is browning, here, if you...
you can, of course, serve the soup
in little individual cups or... and you don't have
to gratinée it. And so you just put
a croûte in the bottom and then pour
some onion soup on the top. And then just put on some cheese and you can serve it like that. Or, if you want to make
more of a meal of it, you can put the croûte on
and then you can put a poached egg
on top of the croûte and then the cheese
on top of that. Now, the way this is now,
you could put, say, two or three croûtes in
and just bake this... bake and brown this in the oven. So you have all kinds
of ways to serve it. Now, I've got to go back
before that... Heavens. It's really brown. Oh, that's beautiful. There you are. I think that possibly browned
a little bit too much, but I don't know.
It gives a very good effect. But, remember, when
you're gonna do the gratinée, you can get the soup done
as far ahead as you want. As a matter a fact, I think,
if you did it a day ahead, it would probably
even taste better. But don't do the gratinée
until the very last minute. And then take it right
into the dining room. 'Cause you want it
to be bubbling when it comes in. Then you're ready to serve it. And have a big ladle. You usually have to cup down through the top a little bit. And there you are. And that's a wonderful smell. And a very appetizing one. And if you want
to serve wine, I think something like
a California mountain red or a Beaujolais
go extremely well with it. And this is such
a gratinée soup-- it's very rich with
all that cheese and toast in it. And I really think
you don't need much else along with your meal
than a green salad. And you might want
to follow it with fruit. So this is really the soup that made the onion famous, and it's your own
French onion soup, whether you've started it
from scratch or from out of the can. When you've added
all these little French touches, who's going to know? So, that's all for today
on<i> The French Chef.</i> This is Julia Child. Bon appétit. ANNOUNCER: The French Chef<i>
has been made possible</i> <i> by a grant from
the Polaroid Corporation</i> <i> and a grant from Hills Bros.
Coffee, Incorporated.</i> Captioned by<font color="#00FFFF">
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org</font> ♪ <i> Julia Child
is coauthor of the book</i> Mastering the Art
of French Cooking.
