French Alpine Cheese, Tomato and Onion Soup

French Alpine Cheese, Tomato and Onion Soup

from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker, Lynn Alley, Ten Speed Press, 2010.

I’ll always give a soup recipe a try as soups are a favourite meal for me so, despite the fact that I’m uncertain about the benefits of the slow cooker for some vegetable dishes, I got stuck into this one.

First the onions had to be fried until brown. It was then only a matter of tossing the ingredients (onions, tomatoes, wine and water) into the cooker, turning it on and coming back 6–8 hours later. Very easy.

To serve you just add a slice of bread to the bowl and drop diced Gruyère cheese on it. Then pour the soup over.

I found that the Gruyère did not go well with the soup. Its strong flavour was somewhat overpowering. Personally I think I would go with a simple mix of grated Parmesan and mozzarella.

I wonder whether this was really a recipe for a slow cooker. I do find that some of the recipes in this book seem to be added just for the sake of filling the book. It would have been just as easy to fry the onions in a saucepan and then drop in the other ingredients. An hour would then be ample time to cook it. I am not convinced that the extra time really added anything to the flavour of the soup.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔