Cooking with the College

Recipe – Cooper’s Tomato Soup!

From Kristyn Cooper – Jewellery / Metal Arts Co-ordinating Instructor

See the recipe below, or click this document to download a PDF: Cooper’s Tomato Soup

This soup is velvety, flavorful, satisfying, and you might already have all the ingredients in your kitchen!  It’s also easy….I mean not as easy as opening a can of soup, but about 1000 times more delicious!  I’ll bet you’ll never go back to canned tomato soup after you make this….just don’t forget the secret ingredient ;).  Add a really great grilled cheese or a crusty baguette and this little meal will impress.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 large 796ml can of tomatoes, (diced or stewed whole will work – no added herbs or spices)
  • 5 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
  • ½ large onion, cut into big chunks
  • 4 tablespoons butter (butter is preferred over oil as it makes this soup extra creamy)
  • 4 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed, cut in half
  • 1 small bay leaf
  • ½ teaspoon basil
  • ½ teaspoon oregano
  • ¼ teaspoon rosemary
  • *Secret Ingredient – ½ teaspoon baking soda*
  • Optional – ½ – ¾ cup milk or cream (to your taste)
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a soup pot over medium heat, then add your onion and garlic cloves. Cook over medium heat until softened and fragrant.  Careful not to burn your garlic!
  2. Add can of tomatoes and chicken stock.
  3. Throw in your spices! Small bay leaf (remove this at the end of cooking), basil, oregano, rosemary and season with some salt and pepper (start with about ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ pepper and then add more at the end if desired).  Don’t worry if you don’t have some of these spices – you can absolutely substitute some of your other favorites…just go easy at first and adjust to taste.
  4. Bring to a simmer over medium/high heat. Stir well.  Turn down to low/medium.
  5. Simmer on low/medium for 45 min (I usually half-cover the pot to reduce splashing, but don’t let this come to a full boil…keep to a simmer). Stir often.
  6. After 45 min or so, remove from heat. Fish out that bay leaf!  You don’t want to eat it.
  7. Blend using an immersion blender until very smooth (If you don’t have an immersion blender, carefully transfer to regular blender in batches and blend. Be careful here though!  Hot liquid can splash like crazy in covered blender, and also when removing the lid!  It’s often better to let the soup cool a bit first, blend in blender, then reheat in the pot before serving).
  8. Add the ‘Secret Ingredient’ – ½ teaspoon of baking soda! This will reduce the acidity of the tomatoes and make it taste smoother.  It will sort of foam a bit but just stir it.
  9. If you taste at the end and feel like it’s missing something you can try adding a small pinch of sugar, approximately ¼ teaspoon (every can of tomatoes will be slightly different so sometimes a bit of extra sweet is good).
  10. Optional – Add about ½ – ¾ cup of milk or cream if you do dairy and if you want to be really indulgent.
  11. Enjoy and feel good!

Note:  Makes approx. 3 generous servings

Image source: Inspired Taste