This soup is savory, sweet, and delicious, and almost ridiculously cheap to make. Most of the ingredients I had on hand – except I went and bought the biggest onions ever. Any of the ingredients that you might not have (beer – comeon people, and vermouth) you can certainly omit. The important thing about this soup is that you must allow the onions to get super brown. You can’t rush that part, or the soup won’t have a developed flavor. Start to finish, this takes about an hour and a half
Music to cook with by Yann Tiersen, “Les Jours Tristes [Instrumental]” from the movie “Amelie.” Hey you need something French, if you’re making French Onion Soup – even if I made it with Yuengling 
02 Les Jours Tristes [Instrumental]
1 huge vidalia onion (or two smaller)
1 huge spanish onion
1 huge red onion
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp brown sugar
lots of pepper
half a bottle of beer
3 tbsp dry vermouth (the white kind)
3 dashes of hot sauce
1 quart low sodium beef stock
5 cups water
In a large dutch oven, allow butter and olive oil to melt together on medium low heat. Meanwhile, slice your onions into thin half circle slices. Begin weeping. Add onions to dutch oven and stir to coat with fats. Saute with lid on, over medium low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. This will help shrink the onions down because the onions will steam a bit.
After 20 minutes take the lid off and saute for 15 minutes without the lid. The liquid from the onions will start to evaporate and they will begin to brown. Stir occasionally. Add salt, sugar, pepper. Saute for 15 more minutes. Serious browning happening. They should be caramel colored. Add flour to onions, and stir well to cook off flour taste.
Turn heat to medium. Add beer, vermouth, and hot sauce. At this point, if i had had Worcestershire sauce, I would have added some now. Scrape bottom of pan with wooden spoon to get brown bits off the bottom of the pan. The onions and liquid should be bubbling. Turn heat to medium high and add your broth and water. Bring to a rolling simmer, cover partially and simmer for 45 minutes.
At this point, what you do with it is up to you. It really should be put into a crock, topped with good bread and swiss or provolone cheese and put under the broiler. But that would be too fun for me, wouldn’t it? So i have some whole grain bread and some goat cheese for the top. *recognize this cup from my pottery class taken in the summer of 06? it was the closest thing i had to a crock!*
