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soupe au fromage

Soups & potages

Soupe au Fromage

By Papou Poustache

Cantal melts between layers of country bread, cabbage and softened onions, with white wine lifting the rich broth. In the oven, the bread swells with the cooking juices and the cheese forms a golden top. This is the substantial country soup of Auvergne and Aveyron, brought to the table thick enough to eat with a fork. Break through the browned surface and share it straight from the gratin dish.

Prep
Not stated
Cook
Not stated
Total
Not stated
Batch1×
Jump to recipe ↓CPAuvergne ↗

Ingredients

Ingredients

Method

  1. Warm the fat in a large sauté pan and gently colour the sliced onions.
  2. Blanch cabbage leaves for 15 minutes. Add to the onions with broth and white wine; simmer 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Heat oven to 180°C. In a large gratin dish, alternate bread slices, grated Cantal and generous ladlefuls of broth with cabbage and onions, finishing with cheese.
  4. Bake for about 45 minutes. The source permits stirring halfway through or after baking according to whether you want to keep the gratin crust. Serve when thick enough for a spoon to stand in it.

Equipment

Large sauté pan; Saucepan for blanching; Large gratin dish; Oven; Grater

Notes

  • Start with stale country bread and slice it for the layers. Use either lard or duck fat to soften and gently colour the onions.
  • Allow for 15 minutes blanching the cabbage, 30 minutes simmering and roughly 45 minutes in the oven, plus the untimed preparation and onion browning.
  • Stir halfway through baking or after taking the dish from the oven if you prefer a blended texture. Leave the surface intact when you want to keep the browned crust.
  • The traditional cue is a soup thick enough for a spoon to stand upright. Serve it from the gratin dish and eat with a fork.
  • No person count is stated for this Cantal batch. The separate Christmas recipe uses different ingredients and gives its own six-person yield.

About this dish

In Auvergne and Aveyron, soupe au fromage makes a meal from bread, broth and local cheese. Its name hardly suggests how substantial it is. The traditional serving test is a spoon standing upright in the dish, and it is eaten with a fork. Aveyron still serves it at summer night markets and village fêtes as well as during the cold months.

For Papou Poustache, bread soup recalls the two months he chose to spend working on a small farm near the Cantal border at thirteen. Loaves arrived once a week from Blesle and were stored in the cellar. Soup appeared every evening. At first he was unconvinced, but plenty of cream and fourme gradually turned it into something he loved.

The recipe he gives here layers Cantal with bread, cabbage and an onion broth sharpened with white wine. The bread absorbs the liquid as the cheese melts through it. Stirring makes the mixture more uniform; keeping the top intact preserves the gratin crust.

Recipe and cooking notes adapted from CPAuvergne.