Tomato Soup

Today we had tomato soup for dinner. I had not made much tomato soup before, so this recipe came together by feel and based on experience. It uses few ingredients, although peeling the tomatoes and charring the peppers takes a little work. It is worth it: the soup is rich and warming, with a gentle heat from the chilli.

You need very little equipment. It is easiest if you have a kitchen blowtorch and a stick blender. Apart from that, you need a bowl of iced water, a knife and a saucepan.

For four people:

10 tomatoes

2 bell peppers

1/2 leek

Chilli to taste

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp marjoram

1 litre good stock

Cream, to serve

Good bread

• Start by peeling the tomatoes. Bring a pan of water to the boil, cut a cross in the top of each tomato and lower them into the boiling water for 10–15 seconds. Transfer them straight to iced water to stop the cooking. The skins should now pull away easily from the cuts.
• Char the peppers with a kitchen blowtorch until the skins are black. Put them in a bread bag and use the bag to rub off the skins; they should come away on their own. If you do not have a blowtorch, use the grill in the oven and turn the peppers regularly with tongs. Charring them this way brings out a great deal of their natural sweetness.
• Remove the cores and seeds from the peppers and roughly chop the flesh. Roughly chop the leek. Remove the green stalk ends from the tomatoes and roughly chop them.
• Put the vegetables in the saucepan, add the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the vegetables are tender, then blend to your preferred consistency.
• Season with marjoram, chilli, smoked paprika, salt and pepper.
• Finish with a thin swirl of cream and serve with good bread. Garlic bread is particularly good with this soup. For something more substantial, boil a few eggs, cut them into wedges and add them before serving.

Enjoy,

Sinnakokken.