Onion Soup with Fontina Pasticciata

 Lidia Bastianich's was on the Today Show and this is one of the 3 recipes she demonstrated from her new cookbook. Flavors were great! We halved this recipe and it made enough for a light meal for 2  --next time I will make the full recipe. It was very good and also substituted small baguettes for the Italian bread --this was very good but next time I will cut them into bite size ahead of toasting and adding cheese so they would be easier to eat with soup. This was the BEST onion soup every the mushrooms make it so meaty!!

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 large sweet onions, thickly sliced
• 10 ounces white mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
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• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade, or low-sodium store-bought
• 12 slices stale Italian bread, about 1/3 inch thick, from a long oval loaf
• 8 ounces Italian fontina, grated
• 3/4 cup freshly grated Grana Padano
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• Preheat the oven to 425 F.

  2.

  Heat the butter and olive oil in a low, wide Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the onions, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, 15 to 17 minutes. 

• Add the mushrooms. Increase the heat to medium. Cook and stir until the mushrooms and onions are dark golden, about 10 minutes more. 

• Add the thyme and season with salt and pepper. Add the white wine, and simmer until it's almost completely reduced, about 2 minutes. 

• Add the stock and simmer until the onions are very tender and the soup is thick, 12 to 15 minutes.

  Toast the bread on the oven rack until just golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Toss the fontina and Grana Padano together in a medium bowl. Set the pieces of bread on top of the soup, starting at the edges, then filling in the middle. Sprinkle with the cheese mixture. Bake in the oven until the cheese is browned and bubbly, about 20 minutes. Spoon the bread and soup into wide soup bowls to serve. 

• This soup can also be poured into individual ramekins, then topped with the bread and cheese and baked.

  From "Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl" by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. Copyright © 2021 by Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.