CAMDEN, Maine — When thinking about a French meal, French onion soup almost always comes to mind.
I went to Bistro La Cave in Camden to learn how to make it.
But before we start talking soup, if you don't know how cute Camden is, you need to make a trip. It is one of the cutest areas around! It's on the water, has the falls, and is simply a picturesque oceanside town.
Then you stumble upon Bistro La Cave. They have a gorgeous indoor/outdoor space that has the perfect vibe for the summer, but you can also tell it would be cozy on a snowy day, too. I instantly knew I loved the place.
When I walked in, I was greeted by their chef Elizabeth Toussaint. She gave me the lay of the land before it was time to get into making the soup.
Shocking to nobody, French onion soup starts with, you guessed it: onions. Lots of them.
Elizabeth was kind enough to slice them all before I arrived, so I didn't have to cry all morning.
All in all, the recipe was pretty simple. We put the sliced onions into a pot, added some butter, and then they went into their wood-fired oven. Yup, you heard that right. They cook almost all of their food in a wood-fired oven.
They leave the onions in the unlit oven overnight so they can caramelize very slowly. Despite being unlit, the oven stays very hot at nearly 300 degrees. Elizabeth said this is one step you cannot rush. Many restaurants try to cook the onions faster to save time, but that sacrifices the overall quality of the soup. Allowing them to cook slowly overnight give them time to caramelize at the right speed to get the perfect flavor.
The following morning, the onions are reduced by about 75 to 80 percent, which concentrates all of that onion flavor without a watered-down taste.
The caramelized onions go onto the stove so we can cook in some ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, salt, and pepper. A note about the ketchup: Elizabeth said most recipes use sugar, but the ketchup already has sugar and give it a bit of additional flavor. Simple ingredients. Next, we pour in their homemade stock and let it simmer so all of the flavors can meld together.
Once we are good to go, it's time to plate the soup.
It gets topped with homemade croutons and a mixture of different cheeses, including the classic gruyere.
A pop into the oven to melt the cheese, and then I got to torch it. Elizabeth told me to not only torch the cheese but also to burn the bread a tiny bit. She said it will really enhance the smoky flavor.
Bon appetit!
This is easily one of the best (if not the best) bowls of French onion soup I've ever had in my life.
I burned my mouth because I was eating too fast, but who hasn't?
It was unique but not too unique, and here's why. The wood-fired oven gave it a little smokiness that I've never had before in a French onion soup. It was subtle, but it really gave it a depth of flavor and played well with everything else.
You can tell Elizabeth is a great chef because she thought to use the torch to burn the croutons the tiniest bit, which gave it a little smokiness that again worked perfectly with the soup. It was really interesting, and I really enjoyed it.
The soup was perfect all around. Now all I want to do is come back sometime so I can have a bowl of soup, dinner, a glass of wine, and listen to some jazz music on a nice summer evening. That sounds lovely.
Thank you to Elizabeth and everyone at Bistro La Cave for teaching me how to make your Wood Fired Onion Soup Au Gratin. It was delicious.