Cream of Fresh Tomato Soup
- 3 tablespoons good olive oil
- 1 ½ cups chopped red onion (2 onions)
- 2 carrots, unpeeled and chopped
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)
- 4 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely chopped (5 large)
- 1 ½ teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 cups chicken stock (homemade is best!)
- 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- Julienned fresh basil leaves for garnish
Heat the oil is a large, heavy bottomed stock pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and carrots and sauté for about 10 minutes, until very tender. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, tomato paste, basil, chicken stock, salt, and pepper and stir well. Bring the soup to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, uncovered, for about 30 to 40 minutes, until the tomatoes are very tender.
Add the cream to the soup and process it through a food mill into a bowl, discarding only the dry pulp that is left. Reheat the soup over low heat just until hot and serve with julienned basil leaves.
Of Soup and Love...
- Old Spanish proverb: "Of soup and love, the first is best!"
- Soup can be traced back to almost 6000 BC. The first recorded soup was said to be made from hippopotamus and the hearts of five sparrows.
- Despite it's French name, vichyssoise (cold potato soup) was first prepared in New York City at the Ritz Carlton Hotel (albeit by French Chef Lois Diat who was born near Vichy, France).
- The word soup is said to come from the word "sop", which was said to be a stewlike dish where bread was used for sopping up the liquid.
- Dr. John T. Torrance invented the first condensed soup in 1897 while working as a chemist for the Campbell Soup Company.