A key ingredient in the recipe for a happy family is time spent around the dinner table. To help your family prioritize family meals, we bring you Better Family Dinners — a series of stories and recipes shared by chefs, cookbook authors, members of the community, and their families to help you have Better Family Dinners together.
This recipe for the iconic bistro classic, French Onion Soup, comes from Vincent Pouessel, who is the executive chef for the Las Vegas location of Mon Ami Gabi, a classic French bistro by Lettuce Entertain You that also has locations in Chicago, Maryland and Virginia.
Mon Ami Gabi was one of the first restaurants Chef Vincent Pouessel visited when he first moved to the United States from France in 2001. Raised in a family of butchers in a small town in France, Chef Pouessel began his culinary career as a seasonal cook at Chez la Mère Pourcel in Brittany and was later named executive sous chef at Le Jules Verne, Eiffel Tower’s Michelin-starred restaurant. In 2001, his career took him to Las Vegas and roles at The Mansion at MGM Grand, Michelin-starred Aureole in Mandalay Bay and db Brasserie before settling into his current role as executive chef at Mon Ami Gabi.
Here, Chef Pouessel shares a bit about his own family dinner traditions and gives us the recipe for this iconic French dish.
What was your family dinner routine growing up?
My grandmother lived with us and she practically raised me along with my sister and brother, so she was cooking for the family every night, and every other night we were having leftover but never just reheated food. She was the best at transforming a dish we already had (let’s say some stew) to a whole new and exciting plate (the stew became a pot pie). I of course helped to get it done in anyway I could.
Do you have a fond memory that centers around food?
Every time I could eat the madeleines batter raw before my grandmother would bake them and knowing exactly how many madeleines she would have with each batch and of course would ask me, did you touch the batter??? I’d run away saying “Nooo.”
Do you have any traditions that you have carried on?
My Grandmother made galletes everyday as a business in a dedicated room my dad built in the house and sold them, everyone in town called her Mamie Galettes. So now as often as I can I make galettes (savory crepes) with eggs, bacon and Swiss cheese for my family. I bring back the buckwheat flour from Brittany, France, or have family bringing some when they come to visit.
French Onion Soup au Gratin
Serving Size: 4
Ingredients
• 2 pounds yellow onions, julienned
• 1 garlic clove, sliced into small slivers
• . cup butter, melted
• ó bay leaf
• 2 fluid oz. white wine
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 cups beef broth
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Ingredients to serve
• 12 toasted baguette slices, cut ó-inch-thick croutons, 3 each per bowl
• 4 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated per bowl, 1 oz per bowl
• 4 ounces Jarlsberg cheese, grated per bowl 1 oz per bowl
Method
1. Cut the yellow onions into julienne strips.
2. Slice the garlic clove into small slivers. To sliver garlic, rest a paring knife at a slight angle against the peeled clove and use a gentle rocking motion to slice the clove into several slices.
3. In a heavy bottom sauce pot with melted butter, sauté together the julienned yellow onion and sliced garlic clove with the ó bay leaf. Caramelize slowly over medium heat to develop flavor, approximately 20 minutes.
4. Add in the white wine and reduce for 5 minutes.
5. Add chicken and beef stock. Simmer, uncovered, until the liquid is deeply flavored and slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Place crocks on a sheet pan. Ladle 10 ounces of soup into each of the crocks (or oven proof bowls).
8. Top each soup with 3 slices of toasted baguette and a generous amount of grated Gruyere and Jarlsberg cheese on top of bread.
9. Place the onion soup crocks under the broiler until the cheese is brown and begins to bubble.
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