So, I was watching Alton Brown the other night and he did a cheese soup and it just looked really tasty so I decided to make it tonight. Of course, me being me, I didn’t exactly follow the recipe - cut it in half cause I don’t need *that* much cheese soup, dropped the celery and carrots, added some beer, and ended up using a different cheese…but it came out wonderfully. Wegmans had demi-baguettes today, don’t know if it’s new or they just do them occasionally or what, but I grabbed one of those, sliced it up and have been dunking them in the soup…
It’s very rich, but not “heavy” at all. Definitely think I’ll be doing this one again with different cheeses just to see how they come out.
Cheese Soup, adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Recipe
2T butter
1/2 c. diced onion
bit of salt for sweating the onions
3T AP flour
1 14oz can chicken stock/brother, plus a splash of beer to bring it to ~2 c. total. Heat to a simmer.
1 t minced garlic (couple cloves)
1 bay leaf
1/2 c. heavy cream
5 oz. cheese (used a maple smoked cheddar, originally called for fontina, but I couldn’t find it right off the bat and when I saw the smoked cheddar , it just seemed to good to pass up)
1/2 t marsala wine
1/2 t worcestershire sauce
1/4 t hot sauce
1/4 t white pepper
Melt butter, add onions & salt, sweat onions for 5-10 minutes.
Sift in flour and stir in.
Stir in chicken stock/beer, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, add garlic and bay leaf and let simmer 30 minutes.
Turn off heat, remove bay leaf
Blend in cream.
Blend in cheese, small handfuls at a time to let it melt.
Add wine, sauces and pepper. (I didn’t really much measure on the wine/sauces, just a small splash of each and a little bit of ground cayenne cause I had no hot sauce)
