Mend Your Heart with French Onion Soup

Guaranteed deliciousness with every spoonful. Now let's cut to the chase. Recipe used:  http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/french_onion_soup/

    

The recipe calls for Swiss Gruyere cheese. 

If you consider yourself wise, stick with this suggestion. However, please do not grate soft cheeses such as Swiss Gruyere cheese. It breaks my heart to have to pay $10 for a pound of this and then waste a bunch of it on the cheese grater. Just chop it into pieces so none of it is wasted and throw it over the bread during the homestretch.

I followed my dad's recipe for the chicken broth. The reason a lot of people don't like making this soup is because it takes a long time. Well as true as it is that onions take approximately fifty minutes if not more to completely caramelize, you can cut the cooking time in half for the entire recipe if you make the broth a day ahead of time...which of course, I did not do.


                                                              Before:

After:

Clearly, fifty minutes may not be enough for the onions to caramelize or completely brown.

I divided the amount of each ingredient in this recipe by 2 and this is what 3 finely sliced onions looks like. Prepare for some serious crying.:

Luckily enough, Rachel Ray was describing how to make french onion soup while I was making it so clearly,  it was in my destiny to make it today. Anyway, she recommended adding salt to the onions to help with the caramelization because it brings the water out of the onions- nothing related to the biological concept of water diffusion there. I also added lemon juice and a pinch of saffron due to her recommendations and put the lid over the pot occasionally to speed the cooking process--something my common sense forgot to remind me of. 

Homemade recipe for the broth:

You will need: 
Olive/Vegetable Oil, basil leaves, cloves, garlic, ginger, 1 carrot, cloves, 1 onion, black pepper corn, 1 teaspoon salt, chicken bones, cauliflower, broccoli,  one liter of your finest tap water

Instructions:

Heat the sauce pan for a minute.
Throw in the oil.
Throw in the basil leaves, cloves, black pepper corn.
Let sizzle. 
Add garlic, ginger.
Let sizzle moar; ponder the meaning of life. 
Add your cauliflower, broccoli, bulky chopped carrot and onion, and leave the chicken bones for last. Once the meat on the bones turns brown, you can add your water.
Once the water is added, put it on low heat and let it cook for two hours. 
Scrape off the fat found on the top of the broth as time passes and throw it away.

What your broth should resemble before the water is added: 

Once your broth is finished, you can separate these ingredients from the liquid. Using your best laboratory techniques you learned from chemistry lab, devise a creative filtration system.

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