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 built in electric hob with a very small oven underneath. The hob 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 to make life easier, I make sure I have two hobs working at the same time so I can move the pan from one hob to the other.
Anyway, this is what I had to do here. Playing hob scotch to make sure I didn’t burn the onions and they were able to brown slowly. But, those bloody onions took close 1.5 hours to cook. Julia lied to me, she said they will take 30-40 minutes. Absolutely not, Julia. And yes, I was standing over the pot, stirring and stirring THE. ENTIRE. TIME. I was quite shocked this process took so long, but at the 30 minute mark, the onions were still pretty white and hadn’t browned at all. I wasn’t sure if it was due to my shit stove or the recipe being from the 1960s but I really didn’t want to mess this step up, as I know the browner the onions get, the better the flavour.
Finally the onions were good to go, you then need to 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 another thousand hours to make my own stock. So, when I was in Woolies the day before, I 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. But alas, this was going to be a slight 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. Once 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.
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, albeit a tad salty!
Next you need to pop the soup into oven proof ramekins, gently place the garlicy croutes on top, just so they are floating. Do not submerge the croutes otherwise there will be hell to pay. Then last but not least, the best part - the cheese. Glorious cheese! Sprinkle grated Gruyère on top of the croutes and place under the grill to melt and brown.
Once gloriously golden remove from the grill and serve. But be careful as it is a cauldron of fire and you will be sure to burn your face off. I was excited to try it, I’ve only ever had French Onion Soup once and it wasn’t mind blowing. Unfortunately, neither was mine. When it came to eating the soup, as mentioned above, it was a bit too salty. I would say it was on that borderline realm of edible and still enjoyable, but a pinch more and you would have been chugging water for the next 3 days.
I can’t blame the recipe, it was entirely my fault, well actually I’m going to blame Matt Moran for this one. I made a big mistake by adding stock cubes, bloody Matt sent me spiraling and I added one too many. I did taste the soup along the way and the seasoning seemed ok, but with the added cheese, the liquid reducing during the cooking process, I had a big pot of almost too salty soup.
But apart from that, diving into the mound of cheese, navigating those crispy croutes and finding that hot brown liquid, I found the eating experience quite enjoyable. The broth 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. Albeit a tad salty, it still made for a very pleasant meal.
Overall, I was quite impressed with my first attempt at a savoury French classic. Even though it took 900 years to make, I will happily make it again, with a few tweaks next time. I will never trust a celebrity chef again and will definitely not waste my money on their branded crap (Maggie Beer is the exception - her Vino Cotto is out of this world). Or perhaps I will just leave it to the experts and actually go to France and eat my way through every French Onion Soup I can find- for research purposes obviously!
Until next adventure.
Jo x
Recipe can be found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 by Julia Child.