tomato soup

My kids like tomato soup out of a tin.  This is a recipe that has evolved to try and recreate that tin-fresh flavour!  When I first made it without the carrot I found it too acidic until I remembered some advice from my old Italian housemate and added a carrot to neutralise the acid.  Bingo!
It also uses a glut of tomatoes and can be frozen before adding the cream/yoghurt.
All weights are approximate, the good thing about soup is that you can use up what you have available without getting bogged down in the details...  This makes 4-6 bowlfuls.

 

I had little luck growing my own tomatoes last year as it was so cold, but this is an old pic from the year before where I grew some really lovely marmande beefsteaks as well as sungold and some other yellow tomatoes.  I'm hopeful to have a few more homegrown this year!

 

You Will Need:

 

1 medium carrot

1 medium onion

1 medium potato

800g - 1kg tomatoes

1-2 cloves garlic

300ml home made stock or a stock cube melted in 300ml boiling water (I really like kallo at the moment)

Cream or organic plain (live) yoghurt to serve

Fresh basil leaves to serve (optional)

 

You will also need a stick blender or food processor as well as a sieve and a second saucepan or jug to sieve soup in to.

 

Cook!

 

1.  Chop the carrot, potato and onion and sweat in a saucepan over a low heat for 10-15 mins till the onion has softened. Don't worry about chopping everything too finely, you are going to blend all the lumps out of the soup before serving!  However, the smaller you chop, the quicker the veg will soften.

 

2.  Chop the tomato and add to the pan.  Finely chop the garlic (or push it through a press) and add to the pan.  Cook over a low heat for a minute or so (while boiling the kettle and mixing up the stock cube if you are using).

 

3.  Add the stock to the pan and bring to the boil.  Turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

 

4.Turn off the heat and use the stick blender to knock out all the lumps.  Don't go too crazy and blend the tomato pips as well as they might turn your soup bitter!  Alternatively working in batches decant the soup to a food processor (be careful not to overload the processor!) and blitz, but be careful not to blitz the pips.

 

5.  Push the soup through the seive into a second pan or pyrex jug.  If you are going to freeze the soup allow it to cool before containering it up and freezing.

 

6.  Serve with a spoonful of yoghurt stirred in or some cream, with some fresh baked bread to serve and maybe a couple of basil leaves.