I want to make the best tomato soup.
I know. It isn’t what anyone was expecting. I don’t even know if it what I was expecting when I was thinking about resolutions, but then outside influences happened. My husband is a unique outside influence, because he doesn’t even try to influence anything other than my music choices. We were watching a food documentary and talking about favorite foods and comfort foods and the goal came to me out of the wild blue yonder.
When I was a wee young lass (think around age 8), my mother and I would eat tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches together. It was our thing when I was a kid, because no one else in the house liked tomato soup. At the time I didn’t like tomato soup. I just wanted to hang out with my mom and I loved grilled cheese sandwiches. I learned swiftly that cheese and tomato are secret best friends.
I am an adult now, and I love tomato soup. It is the go to soup that my husband and I can agree on and is a nostalgic sort of comfort food. If I am making soup, it is in the top the requested. Until recently, I have never made tomato soup from scratch. It has always been a name brand canned soup. Recently I have made my first attempts into learning the art of tomato soup and for a soup that some think of as a side step away from ketchup, it is not an easy soup to make.
The first step in the journey was to do research. I have a plethora of cookbooks, but the one I used as the basis of my first attempt was Ski Town Soup. (If you recall I may have blogged about a chili I made when I was going through a cookbook challenge. The chili was magnificent.) This cookbook held half a dozen variations of tomato soup from notable ski resorts. I was able to flip through and compare the different ingredients and preparations with ease and come up with a game plan for my first attempt.
First attempt consisted of roasting tomatoes in the oven and then peeling them. While the tomatoes were roasting with rosemary and thyme, diced carrots and onion were sweating it out together in a sauce pan. After the tomatoes were done being roasted they were peeled, chopped and cooked with the carrots and onion. After simmering together, chicken broth and basil was was added and all of it spent quality time in a blender until it was an odd tomato smoothie. After blender time, cream was added to the soup to make it a creamy tomato. Salt and pepper were added through out the process. Everything was heated through and served with grilled cheeses sandwiches. The end result wasn’t terrible, but certainly not the best.
The ratio of carrots used in comparison to tomatoes, made it seem more like a carrot soup. (Who knew carrots were that mighty?) I like the roasted tomatoes. I think they brought out a nice flavor, even if peeling skins off hot tomatoes is an act of madness. I was a nice soup, but not the best tomato soup. Additional experiments will commence. If you have any suggestions on processes/ ingredients to tweak let me know. There is no wrong path to take to get to the best tomato soup.
