Anyone who’s cooked from Julia Child’s famed tome, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” swears by her Soupe au L’Oignon Gratinée. Slow-cooked for hours, a dark brown broth with sweet caramelized onions, a splash of Sherry, and a baked-on crouton gooey with bubbled Gruyere cheese – I mean, really, is there anything better?
Up until last month I would have said “no.”
But then I tasted the sublime Zwiebelsüppchen (“little onion soup”) at Hotel Monika in the heart of Italy’s Dolomite mountains. Topped with a silken Parmesan haube (cap or bonnet in English) that fairly floated over the soup and croutons of rosemary-spiked homemade bread, it was a masterpiece of taste, texture and eye appeal.
Julia would have admired the intense flavor of the soup, cooked for hours with well-browned onions, white wine, thyme and bay leaf, as her own version is. She would have appreciated, too, the participation of Parmesan instead of Gruyere, given the soup’s Sexten, Italy address. And she’d probably be wondering, as I am, exactly how they achieved the luxuriously smooth cloud of Parmesan cream on top.
Together with four friends, my husband and I were in this
northeastern corner of Italy to do a four-day, hut-to-hut trek with a guide.
Since some of the hütte are rather primitive, I booked us into small,stylish hotels for the nights before (see Hotel Alpenblick) and after the trek.
Hotel Monika was the end point of our mountain adventure, greeting us warmly with Prosecco cocktails and elegant four-course dinners – including the homemade tagliolini (above) with Champagne sauce, kohlrabi, summer truffles, and a “blossom” of Tete de Moine cheese; along with hot showers, fluffy duvets, and flower-bedecked balconies looking over the extraordinary peaks we had just traversed.
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