Recipe no. 33 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 23.
Ingredients
- 2 or 3 onions
- Butter
- Flour
- 1 litre of boiling water
- Salt
- Pepper
- Nutmeg
- Crushed clove of garlic
- Bay leaf
- Bread (thin slices)
- Grated cheese
Preparation
- RouxSlice 2 or 3 onions finely and put them to brown in a saucepan with a lump of butter the size of an egg.
- FlourAdd a spoonful of flour and let it colour lightly.
- MoisteningMoisten with a litre of boiling water.
- SeasoningSeason with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add a crushed clove of garlic and a bay leaf.
- CookingLet cook a quarter of an hour.
- DressingPut into a tureen slices of bread cut thin, alternating with grated cheese, and pour the broth over, straining it.
- Gratinating (optional)If desired, put a good layer of grated cheese on top and place in the oven.
Reboul's text
Slice 2 or 3 onions finely, put them to brown in a saucepan with a lump of butter the size of an egg; add a spoonful of flour and let it colour lightly; moisten with a litre of boiling water; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; add a crushed clove of garlic, a bay leaf, and let cook a quarter of an hour.
Put into a tureen slices of bread cut thin, alternating with grated cheese, and pour the broth over, straining it.
Needless to say, when one wishes to gratinate this soup, a tureen able to withstand the heat of the oven must be chosen.
Once the tureen is full, a good layer of grated cheese is put on top and it is placed in the oven.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| cebo | onion |
| burre | butter |
| farino | flour |
| aigo | water |
| pebre | pepper |
| muscado | nutmeg |
| aiet | garlic |
| laurié | bay leaf |
| pan | bread |
| froumage | cheese |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 33, page 23. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.