Onion Soup with Cheesy Cauliflower


Not like  it’s cold here in South Carolina (I am not complaining), but this soup sure does warm up your insides.

Yield: 4 very generous servings

Ingredients

For the Soup

  • 2 T f.o.c. (fat of choice), we used duck fat
  • 4 large onions, thinly sliced (A mix of onions is great. We used 1 red onion, 1 Vidalia (sweet) and 2 yellow)
  • 1 quart beef stock
  • couple sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • s&p

For the Topping

  • 1 c cooked and pureed/smashed cauliflower*
  • 1 c Swiss, Emmentaler or Gruyere cheese, shredded
  • 1 egg

Method

For the Soup

In a large soup pot, melt your f.o.c. over medium-low heat. Add the onions, thyme and bay leaves and place a lid on the pot, slightly ajar. We’re trying to “melt” the onions by the steam we create from keeping the lid on, but ajar.

Now the magic ingredient is time. You’ll want to check on the onions, every 10 minutes or so, giving them a nice swirl around the pan, until they’ve deflated in volume by about half. If you see any brown color on the onions, you need to reduce the heat.

From this point, you want to place the lid even more ajar than before. We want less steam and more evaporation. The onions cooked through via steam, so now we want to brown the natural sugars and create some flavor.

Once the onions are the color of “coffee with some cream in it”…and you’ve got some brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pot…

Add the beef stock, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pot, getting up any browned/burned onion pieces. Let it simmer for 10 minutes. You can remove the bay leaves and thyme twigs at this point.

For the Topping

Preheat your oven to 400ºF.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Use your hands to evenly spread the topping mixture over the soup. Place the topped soup in the oven for about 10 minutes, until everything looks bubbly, yummy. Stick the oven on broil for a few minutes, if you’d like.

*You can either buy the frozen stuff, thaw it out and smash or boil some fresh florets in water, drain and smash.


Comments

12 responses to “Onion Soup with Cheesy Cauliflower”

  1. Holy holy! I am all over this recipe. Love the idea of the cauliflower on top! 🙂

  2. This is amazing? I never thought about using cauliflower for the bread portion!

  3. […] health-bent.com via Emily on […]

  4. Holy shit. I am floored.

    When my dairy allergy clears up, I AM SO MAKING THIS! Thanks!!!

    1. thanks pat!

      i bet if you salt your cauliflower topping well and add an egg or two to the mix and bake it on top…it would set nicely like our shepards pie. you’d be missing the goo of the cheese a little but i think it would still be good eats.

  5. My stupid candida has also given me an egg allergy. *SOBS HYSTERICALLY*

    To be primal and NOT be able to eat eggs! FOR SHAME!!!

    *shakes fist furiously*

  6. I didn’t consider Swiss cheese as paleo… any thoughts?

    1. http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2010/3/28/the-only-reasonable-paleo-principle.html

      it’s a bit of a gray area. not 10,000 years old per se but can fit a “paleo template” for those who tolerate it.

      1. Thx for the quick response. I dont think that all type of cheese are 10k years old… Have any source of which are “safer” to consume?

        1. here is what dr. harris says in the comments of that post that says what i would say but better.

          “Grass fed will have better n-3, more CLA and more VA.

          A1 milk that is raw may have less antigenic casein -if you worry about that. It still has whey which can also be antigentic (just like beef protein and seafood and eggs, I always add)

          The argument is that pasteurization may make a conformational change to the casein that makes it less susceptible to complete hydrolysis into individual amino acids – then incompletely hydrolysed peptide sequences can be antigenic if they cross a leaky gut (which 6 months after stopping wheat and excess LA n-6 yo hopefully don’t have)

          A2 is probably safer than A1 if you worry about that.. A2 milk has whey as well, of course.

          Being grass fed and a2 is more important that being RAW, probably

          Much of the raw enthusiasm may be political. If you are eating cream and butter I think it makes zero difference and is way less important than having the extra nutrients from being grass fed.

          Before refrigeration, milk was boiled rather than pasteurized. Last I checked, 200 degrees is higher than 160.

          The best and most natural way to drink milk is as something fermented, unless you are eating it as cream butter or cheese.”

  7. Yay! Cheese! 🙂

  8. this was very, very, very good.

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