This is a mash-up of two classics: French onion soup and a French dip sandwich. You get rich, beefy onion soup with melted Gruyère, plus a hot sandwich loaded with sliced beef, Swiss cheese and sweet onions, made for dipping. It’s not traditional, but it is deliberate: same flavours, better payoff, and far more fun to eat.
Category
Lunch
Servings
4
Prep time
20 minutes
Cook time
45 minutes
This is a mash-up of two classics: French onion soup and a French dip sandwich. You get rich, beefy onion soup with melted Gruyère, plus a hot sandwich loaded with sliced beef, Swiss cheese and sweet onions, made for dipping. It’s not traditional, but it is deliberate: same flavours, better payoff, and far more fun to eat.
Ingredients
- 1kg brown onions, thinly sliced
- 25ml olive oil
- 50g unsalted butter
- sea salt, to season
- 50ml brandy
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 dashes Worcestershire sauce
- 4 dashes Maggi seasoning
- 500ml (2 cups) beef stock
- 2 baguettes
- 150g Gruyère cheese, grated
- 30g beef tallow
- 800g ribeye off the bone (or sirloin or rump), thinly sliced
- 150g Swiss cheese slices
Directions
Make the soup
Place the butter and the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. When the butter is melted, add the onions and season with a pinch of salt.
- Stir well and reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onions for 15 minutes, stirring often, until a deep golden colour.
- Pour in the brandy and cook for 1 minute, to cook off the alcohol. Sprinkle over the flour and stir through, then add the bay leaves, Worcestershire and Maggi seasoning.
- Pour in the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat.
Divide soup and baguette
Pass the soup through a sieve and set the onions aside (for the sandwich), remove the bay leaves.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F).
- Ladle the soup into 4 oven-proof bowls.
- Sprinkle the soups with the gruyere cheese and place on an oven tray.
- Place the soups in the oven for 2-3 minutes, until the cheese has melted and is bubbling.
- Slice the baguette into 4 and halve horizontally without slicing the whole way through.
Cook beef and assemble
Heat the tallow on a cast iron flat plate over high heat. Place 1 portion of the beef on the plate and season with some salt.
- Cook the beef for 1-2 minutes, turning to brown on both sides. Push the beef into a mound the length and width of a baguette portion opened up.
- Top with ¼ of the onions then ¼ of the cheese slices. Place the baguette, cut side open, down on top of the cheese.
- Using 2 metal spatulas or bench scrapers, lift under the beef invert baguette into your hand then straight onto a serving plate and press to close.
- Repeat with the remaining beef and baguette.
- Serve the baguettes with the soup and dip the sandwich into the soup and enjoy!
Recipe notes
Cook support
You can grill the beef on a BBQ flat plate if you don’t have a cast iron pan for the stovetop.
Substitutions
The beef tallow can be substituted with olive oil or lard or you can use some of the fat trimmings from the beef.
Serving ideas
You will simply need lots of napkins to go with this!
