Club Recipes - Starters
Method:
- First, prepare your vegetables. You need
1-1.25kg/2lb 4oz-2lb 12oz ripe tomatoes. If the
tomatoes are on their vines, pull them off. The
green stalky bits should come off at the same
time, but if they don't, just pull or twist them
off afterwards. Throw the vines and green bits
away and wash the tomatoes.
- Now cut each tomato into quarters and slice
off any hard cores (they don't soften during
cooking and you'd get hard bits in the soup at
the end).
- Peel 1 medium onion and 1 small carrot and
chop them into small pieces.
- Chop 1 celery stick roughly the same size.
- Spoon 2 tbsp olive oil into a large
heavy-based pan and heat it over a low heat.
- Hold your hand over the pan until you can
feel the heat rising from the oil, then tip in
the onion, carrot and celery and mix them
together with a wooden spoon.
- Still with the heat low, cook the vegetables
until they're soft and faintly coloured. This
should take about 10 minutes and you should stir
them two or three times so they cook evenly and
don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Holding the tube over the pan, squirt in
about 2 tsp of tomato purée, then stir it around
so it turns the vegetables red.
- Shoot the tomatoes in off the chopping
board, sprinkle in a good pinch of sugar and
grind in a little black pepper.
- Tear 2 bay leaves into a few pieces and
throw them into the pan.
- Stir to mix everything together, put the lid on
the pan and let the tomatoes stew over a low
heat for 10 minutes until they shrink down in
the pan and their juices flow nicely. From time
to time, give the pan a good shake – this will
keep everything well mixed.
- Slowly pour in the 1.2 litres/2 pints of hot
stock (made with boiling water and 4 rounded tsp
bouillon powder or 2 stock cubes), stirring at
the same time to mix it with the vegetables.
- Turn up the heat as high as it will go and
wait until everything is bubbling, then turn the
heat down to low again and put the lid back on
the pan.
- Cook gently for 25 minutes, stirring a
couple of times. At the end of cooking the
tomatoes will have broken down and be very
slushy-looking.
- Remove the pan from the heat, take the lid
off and stand back for a few seconds or so while
the steam escapes, then fish out the pieces of
bay leaf and throw them away.
- Ladle the soup into your blender until it’s
about three-quarters full, fit the lid on
tightly and turn the machine on full.
- Blitz until the soup’s smooth (stop the
machine and lift the lid to check after about 30
seconds), then pour the puréed soup into a large
bowl.
- Repeat with the soup that’s left in the pan.
(The soup may now be frozen for up to three
months. Defrost before reheating.)
- Pour the puréed soup back into the pan and
reheat it over a medium heat for a few minutes,
stirring occasionally until you can see bubbles
breaking gently on the surface.
- Taste a spoonful and add a pinch or two of
salt if you think the soup needs it, plus more
pepper and sugar if you like. If the colour’s
not a deep enough red for you, plop in another
teaspoon of tomato purée and stir until it
dissolves.
- Ladle into bowls and serve. Or sieve and
serve chilled with some cream swirled in.
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