As many of you know, I am an awful cook, at least I do make a bunch of jokes about it, but my one thing I like to help make is this. It takes a LONG ass time (also, double or triple ingredients if you want soup servings for 8 or 12 which in my household means my sis gets 2 servings and I get 6 or 10....kidding, kind of). But my sister complains each time she makes it that I eat it all up and leave her none. That is not true. I leave her like a bowl. Haha. Anyway it is GOOD. No, GREAT. She wouldn't make it for Thanksgiving this year, so I asked her to make it for Christmas dinner as my gift. I'll do all grunt work, she can oversee or do the stuff requiring skill. Guys, THIS is my FAVORITE tomato soup in whole wide world. For reals. I will snarf it up like it's fucking crack. I'll drink it cold in a mug. I love it that fucking much. I also think, thinking back to what sis has said, that you should roast the stuff in oven at a lower heat for longer for better flavor
Roasted tomato soup
Ingredients:
4 tbsp olive oil
3 or 4 lbs plum tomatoes, halved
1 big onion, thinly sliced
2 fat garlic cloves, halved
handful of thyme sprigs
1 teaspoon caster sugar
small handful of basil sprigs
32 oz chicken stock or vegetable nage
3 smoked sun-dried cherry tomatoes in oil, drained (or 2 semi-soft sun dried tomatoes and 1 tablespoon barbecue sauce)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
to serve,
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 oz baby cherry tomatoes on the vine
small basil leaves
Serves 4
1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Pour the olive oil into a roasting tin and heat in the oven until almost smoking. Carefully tip in the tomatoes, onion rings and garlic, then toss to coat in the oil. Scatter over the thyme sprigs, sprinkle with sugar and season generously with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 20-25 minutes until nicely caramelised, stirring once or twice and adding the basil towards the end of cooking.
2. Tip the roasted tomatoes and flavorings into a saucepan, discarding any woody thyme stalks. Bring the stock to the boil in another pan, then pour over the tomatoes. Bring to the boil, add the smoked tomatoes (or semi-soft sun-dried tomatoes plus barbecue sauce) and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Strain the stock, reserving the tomato mixture. Tip the tomatoes into a blender or food processor and whiz, gradually adding the stock back in, until smooth and creamy. Pass the soup through a sieve into a clean pan or bowl, rubbing with the back of a ladle. taste and adjust the seasoning.
4. For the garnish, heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Snip the vine tomatoes into four clusters and fry them on the vine for about a minute.
5. Reheat the soup if necessary, but it’s best served warm rather than piping hot. Pour into warmed bowls and top with pan-roasted vine tomatoes. Drizzle the pan juices around the tomatoes and scatter with basil leaves.