Roasted Tomato Soup

The Wife was starting to feel under the weather, and being yet another dreary evening in Richmond, what better than grilled cheese and tomato soup. But this was not going to be just any tomato soup (or any grilled cheese for that matter, but that's another post.)

A good tomato soup should not be too bitter, too tangy or too sweet. It should be smooth and velvety. It should have hint of pepper, natural sweetness from the tomatoes and onions. It should be all of those things, and this recipe is. The Wife described it as decadent.

The recipe I used came from Tyler Florence. I'm going to list the ingredients as I used them, rather than straight from T-Flo's recipe. Not too much a variance, but...

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs. Tomatoes on the vine

1 lb. Grape Tomatoes

6 Cloves of Garlic (unpeeled)

2 medium White Onions, diced.

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1 qt. Chicken Stock

2 Bay Leaves

4 Tb. Butter

1/4 Cup fresh Basil

1 Cup Heavy Cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400.

Remove the tomatoes from the vine and halve, core and seed them. Dice your onions, and place onions, whole garlic cloves, whole grape tomatoes and your cleaned vine tomatoes on/in a roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil, and top with fresh cracked pepper and sea salt.

Roast the mix for about 30-40 minutes. Turn oven up to 450 and roast another 10-15 minutes, until tomatoes and onions start to brown and caramelize. This will give added sweetness to the soup later, as well as give it that roasted tomato flavor.

While your tomatoes are roasting, in large stock pot/dutch oven go ahead and put in 3/4 of a quart of chicken stock, your bay leaves and butter. Don't turn it on yet, just let it sit on your stove top while you're waiting.

When your tomatoes are slightly brown remove them from the oven and fish out your garlic cloves. Add the tomatoes and onions to your chicken stock and slowly bring up to a simmer. Your garlic should be soft enough that you can squeeze it into your stock and it will come right out of it's peel.

Let the soup simmer for about 30 minutes, it will reduce some. Add in your basil, and liquefy with an immersion blender or through a food processor. Add your cream, and if need be add more chicken stock to adjust consistency (I didn't have to add any more).

Season with salt and pepper and serve with crusty sourdough.

As The Wife said...Decadent.