Mr Thick had commented that the previous tomato soup that I had concocted tasted “raw” (remember, this is the same man who thinks that fish is NOT MEAT) so I decided to “cook” the tomatoes a little before turning them into liquid food.
Well, it did taste a lot nicer after I roasted them in the oven. I had made a huge tub of it (I never learn, it seems) but this time, I was pretty happy with having leftovers because it meant that my lunch for the next day was provided for and we all know that soups taste a lot better the day after.
Roasted tomato soup
What you need:
- 1kg tomatoes of mixed variety (I used plum, cheap cooking tomatoes and cherry)
- 850ml of stock, either vegetable or chicken
- 4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 small onions, thinly sliced
- A knob of butter
- A dash of olive oil
- A handful of parsley
- A handful of basil
- Salt, to taste
- Pepper, to taste
Directions:
- Pre-heat your oven to 220 degree Celsius
- Quarter the big tomatoes and deseed them
- Chop the cherry tomatoes into half
- Spread the tomato and garlic out on a baking dish, taking care that they do not cover one another
- Drizzle olive oil on each slice of tomato, followed by a sprinkling of salt and pepper
- Stick the tomatoes into the oven and roast for between 20 to 30 minutes
- Heat up some olive oil and butter in a pot over medium heat
- Fry the onions till they become soft and translucent
- Add the roasted tomatoes and garlic into the pot and stir fry it for about 5 minutes
- Roughly chop up the herbs and add that into the pot, save for little pinch
- Add in the stock and let the soup simmer for about 30 minutes
- Let the soup cool down for 15 minutes
- Stick the immersion blender in and whiz everything up into liquid
- Serve up with croutons or a sprinkling of parsley and basil
How many servings did this yield, I hear you ask. Well. It fitted nicely into four plastic containers but beyond that, I cannot tell you more. I think it would have served six comfortably as a starter but alas, we had too much food during the picnic so we ended up polishing only one box.
If you are not as lazy as I am, you can skin the tomatoes – I’ve read that chucking the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute can help you to remove the skins in a jiffy. You won’t, as I did, end up chewing bits of tomato skin and the soup will definitely be a lot smoother. I also had to chew through green stems from the parsley so it might do you good to just use the leaves.
Yannisms 