The problem with homemade tomato soup is that you are eternally comparing your efforts to the gold standard of Heinz, the most popular of any canned soup on the market, and deservingly so – it’s delicious. But it’s also chock full of salt, sugar and goodness knows how many stabilisers and e-numbers.
So it’s worth finding a homemade version that tastes as good but is genuinely made from at least four of your 5-a-day, and is also a good use of your surplus tomato crop.
I think I have found such a recipe, which recreates the sweetness of the canned version by slow roasting the tomatoes and onions to produce a natural caramelisation, before the final cooking stage.
The recipe is based on one I found on https://www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk/roasted-tomato-soup-fresh-tomatoes/ with a few substitutions.
Ingredients
For 4 helpings;
1kg/2.2lbs fresh tomatoes
1 medium white onion
3-4 cloves of garlic (skin on)
1 stick of celery
1 medium carrot
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp tomato puree
handful of chopped fresh basil leaves
2 ml stock (chicken or vegetable – I used the turkey stock I had made and frozen at Easter)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
Method
1 Rinse your tomatoes then slice and lay them cut side uppermost in a large shallow pan.
2. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
3. Turn them face down.
4. Pop them in a medium oven (around 180c) for about 30 mins, until the skins just start to char
5. Meanwhile chop the onion, celery and carrot and fry them very gently (for about 20 mins) in the butter, until again you see some slight charring occur.
6. Tip the roasted tomatoes and the caramelised onion, celery and carrot into a saucepan, add the chopped basil and stock, and simmer with the lid on for about 30 mins.
7. Liquidise the soup using a hand blender or a mixer with a blade.
8. If you like your soup a bit chunky then you can serve it like this or you can push it through a sieve to remove the pips and any bits of tomato skin.
9. Serve with a drizzle of cream and a few chopped basil leaves
10. This soup also freezes well if you want to double or treble the quantities and make use of your tomato glut.
