I needed to make something for dinner that would help soothe the agony of my aforementioned filthy cold, and remembered that French Onion Soup is delicious, soothing and surprisingly cheap to make.

This is just my version of a classic recipe; the idea for roasting the onions came from Nigel Slater. This will make either two small dainty bistro-style bowls, or one big dirty bowl for someone with a cold.

Ingredients

• 4-5 small onions or 2 big ones
• Glass of white wine
• 600ml Stock – beef is better but you could use vegetable as well
• Grated cheese (anything that melts well – mature Cheddar, Gruyere, Emmenthal)
• French bread
• Black pepper and butter

Instructions

1. Peel the onions and cut them in half lengthways. Place them on a roasting tin with some knobs of butter and some grated black pepper. Roast for about 20-30 mins at 200° until they are soft and tender and brown at the edges.
2. Take the onions out and chop them up. Add them to a pan with the wine, and simmer until the wine is nearly all boiled away. Add in the stock and simmer for about 20 mins until the onions are all tender and the flavour has deepened.
3. Slice the french bread and toast it lightly. Ladle the soup into bowls, float the toasts in the bowls and add grated cheese on top of the toast. Put the bowls under the grill until the cheese is melted. And they’re ready to eat.

This is an extremely cheap way of making a very nice soup, and the great thing about it is that even the most miserable and bare local convenience shop will have a few onions and stock cubes.

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1. Broccoli and Potato Soup
2. Recipes: French feast on a budget
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