GOOD TO WOW—WITH ONLY ONE INGREDIENT

February 25, 2021

When it’s cold outside, soup feels like the perfect food. I was in the mood for a thick tomato soup. I’d never made one before so it was fun to figure out how to do it. The great part of making this soup is that it is easy and doesn’t take a lot of ingredients.

I remembered my mother making tomato soup to serve when she had guests over. I like it, but thought of it more as a lunch soup to serve with a sandwich. It just didn’t seem to be refined enough to serve for a dinner party. “Why did you choose tomato?” I asked her.

It was obvious that she knew something I didn’t. As she was finishing the soup, she added a light cream Sherry to the mixture and blended it in. Pouring a little into a bowl, she then handed it to me so I could taste. The flavor had changed from just tomato, a good lunch soup, into something far more complex and sophisticated.

One ingredient, the right ingredient, has the power to transform the flavors you are working with into something far more intricate than what you started with. That’s what’s so exciting about food and flavors: they always have the possibility to amaze.

 

CREAMY TOMATO SOUP
Excerpted from Le Kitchen Cookbook - a workbook 

Serves: 4
Prep time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients
2 tablespoons high-heat oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions, diced
3 carrots, diced
1 ½ cups chicken broth
two 28 oz canned peeled whole tomatoes, cut up (Use kitchen scissors. In the can, cut tomatoes up.)
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 bouillon cubes or the equivalent to taste; you may add more.
½ cup half and half or heavy cream
¼ cup light cream Sherry (optional)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
 
Directions

1. In Dutch oven, heat oil and butter.
2. Add onion and cook 2 minutes. Add the carrots and continue cooking to soften without browning, 5 minutes.
3. Slowly add the broth; continue to stir as it cooks.
4. Add tomatoes. Breaking them up as you mix them in, bring to a boil.
5. Lower heat and let simmer 45 minutes. Stir as it cooks.
6. Take off heat let sit 5 minutes. Using an immersion blender, emulsify the soup.
7. Add 4 tablespoons soy sauce—one at a time, blending and tasting as you go
8. Add the equivalent of 3 bouillon cubes or more to taste.
9. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
10. Add the heavy cream, blend.
11. Stir in Sherry, if using.
12. To serve: Ladle into soup bowls, sprinkle with parsley, and serve.

  

Bon Appetit.

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