This week, Martin Hollis, executive chef at the Old Course Hotel St Andrews, prepares a warming bowl of tomato soup.
There’s nothing more enticing than the warming smell of homemade tomato soup in the autumn. As we approach the colder months, I want to share with you my roast tomato and bell pepper soup recipe.
The British tomato season runs from June until October, so you’ve still got time to seek out fresh produce for your soup. The best part of this recipe is that it involves so many other fresh products, from basil to thyme – you might even find a lot of the herbs are growing in your back garden.
The ingredients for this recipe are all readily available from any supermarket or fruit and vegetable stall: 1.5kg of very ripe tomatoes – cut in half, 2 red bell peppers – seeded and roughly chopped, 2 large onions – roughly chopped, 6 cloves of garlic – crushed, 3tbsp of tomato purée, 3tbsp of olive oil, 1tsp of fresh thyme leaves, 6 sprigs of parsley, a handful of fresh basil leaves, sugar to taste, seasoning, flat leaf parsley and single cream to finish.
The recipe serves six, and make sure you pre-heat your oven to 200°c before starting. Place the tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, tomato purée and oil in a roasting tray and bake for one hour stirring occasionally until the vegetables are soft and the skins of the peppers have blackened slightly. Remove the roasting tin from the oven and blitz the contents in a food processor before passing through a fine chinois – or sieve.
Place the thyme, parsley and basil in the food processor with a little of the soup and blitz for 15 seconds before stirring into the soup. If the consistency needs correcting, add a little stock or water and then season with sugar, salt or pepper.
This can be chilled and reheated, perfect for a nutritious lunch during the week. I serve it with a flat leaf parsley on top and a little single cream for the extra wow factor.
Chef’s tip
When selecting your tomatoes, go for firm ones with wrinkle free skins – this, along with the wonderfully sweet tomato smell – is the best indication that they’ve been allowed to ripen on the vine. Vine ripened tomatoes will taste noticeably better, but if you have selected the unripened variety, simply keep them in a paper bag at room temperature and they will slowly ripen.
