Another Julia Child Cooking Adventure.
22nd of November 2025
Today I went to France. Sadly, I didn’t leave the country, but I did get the chance to finally cook two French dishes by my favourite cook book writer, the incredible Julia Child. If you’re a foodie and haven’t heard of Julia Child, then you have been living under a rock. Julia Child is one of the most iconic cooks that brought French cooking to the western world. Her cookbooks are my bible, I read them often and have been dying to cook some of her recipes.
French food is my favourite cuisine. I am very lucky to have a couple of really great French restaurants where I live and my absolute favourite French restaurant, Gimlet is just an hour up the road. My French repertoire has only consisted of baked goods. I’m an avid baker and have made some of the most traditional of French patisserie – from croissants, to chocolate mousse, crème brulee, and madelines, brioche and even those tricky little canelé. But I haven’t really ever dived into the wild world of savoury French cuisine.
So, I decided to start simple; French onion soup. With only a small handful of ingredients and no fancy equipment required, I thought this would be the perfect starting point. Seven large brown onions later and thankfully no tears, I was ready to get those thinly cut slices to slowly reduce into a deep golden treasure trove of oniony goodness.
My stove top is quite old and quite frankly shit. It is a build in electric hob with a very small oven underneath. It is a temperamental beast, when it is on high it is hot, it will burn everything in sight. Perfect for stir-fries or cooking a steak, but not for much else. When you reduce the temperate to medium, it looses heat and takes around 20 minutes to figure out where it wants to be. So I make sure I have two hobs working at the same time so I can move them from one hob to the other.
Anyway, the onion took close 1.5 hours to cook. And yes, I was standing over the pot, stirring and stirring. I was quite shocked this process took so long, the recipe states it should only take 30-40 minutes. But at the 30 minute mark, the onions were still yellow and hadn’t browned. Not sure if it was my shit stove or the recipe but I really didn’t want to mess this step up, as I know the browner the onions get, the better the flavour.
Once the onions were good to go, you add hot beef stock. Now, this dish was already going to take some time to make and there was no way I was going to spend the many hours it would take to make my own stock. So, I was in Woolies the day before and found what sounded like a decent beef stock by celebrity chef Matt Moran. Well, Matt Moran, to say I am disappointed is an understatement. $15 later to then find out your beef stock has no flavour. Nothing, nada, zilch, zero. It was brown water. At this stage I didn’t know what to do. Should I rush off to the shops to get the good old Campbells stock that works every time? No. I couldn’t be bothered. I had a pot of onions cooking on the stove and I looked a right mess. So, I rumbled through the pantry and found my trusty beef stock cubes. This was a mistake, which I will tell you about a bit later.
Before you add the stock you need to add some flour and cook it for a few minutes. You then slowly add the stock, about a cup at a time and stir vigorously so no floury lumps form. One you have added all your stock its needs to bubble and boil on a low heat for around an hour. Julia loves Vermouth (or a dry white wine) so she suggests to add this before you simmer the soup. I couldn’t find any good quality Vermouth so I ended up with a Cinzano (Gavin and Stacey anyone?!?), it’s cheap but does the job!
While the soup is bubbling away, you need to prepare your croutes (hard toasted French bread). A very simple step, slice a baguette into thin slices, place on a baking tray and pop into a pre-heated oven for 30 minutes. Half way through you need to turn the slices and drizzle with a good quality olive oil. Once the croutes have dried out and browned you remove from the oven and rub each piece with a garlic clove. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! It is one thousand percent worth it. That very slight garlic aroma makes all the difference which I will discuss later.
The soup is almost ready to assemble and serve. Just before you serve the soup, you add one last ingredient. Cognac. Some people have skipped this step but being the good girl I am, I followed the recipe correctly and added the tiny amount of cognac. I’m not sure if it made any difference but all in all the soup tasted pretty good! You now need to pop the soup into oven proof ramekins, gently pop the garlicy croutes on top, so they are floating onto of the soup. Then the best part. Cheese. Glorious cheese! You place grated Gruyère cheese on top of the croutes and place under the grill to bubble and brown.
Unfortunately when it came to eating the soup, the sad reality was the soup was a bit too salty. Luckily, It wasn’t inedible and it was still very enjoyable. I can’t blame the recipe, it was entirely my fault. I was unaware how salty Gruyère cheese is, plus as I said earlier, I made a big mistake by adding stock cubes, one too many to be exact. I tasted the soup along the way and the seasoning seemed ok, but when I served the it to my partner and we dug through the mound of cheese, those crispy croutes and found the hot brown liquid, I knew it was well over seasoned. But apart from that, the soup was lovely and thick, the soft onions were so delicious and added this beautiful richness and sweetness. And those croutes with the garlic, they were the hero. The crunch was perfect and that little hint of garlic added an extra element. It still made for a very pleasant meal.
Overall, I was quite impressed with my first attempt at a savoury French classic. I will definitely make a few tweaks next time or maybe I will just leave it to the experts and go to France and eat my way through every French Onion Soup - for research purposes obviously!
Jo x
Recipe can be found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 by Julia Child.