Fresh Tomato Soup

This soup is soooo good, you'll never want to have Campbell's version of tomato soup again! The beautiful fresh taste of tomatoes is preserved, while the smooth creamy texture of the soup will make you crave for more. =)

Original recipe from Allrecipes, and can be found here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Garden-Fresh-Tomato-Soup/Detail.aspx

Fresh Tomato Soup (serves 10)

Ingredients

1.5 kg skinned fresh tomatoes (approximately 2 large tomatoes per bowl of soup)

1 and a half large onion, sliced

6 whole garlic cloves

1.5 L chicken stock (or 1.5 L water, with 2 Knorr Chicken cubes)

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon white sugar, or to taste

Optional:

Finely chopped fresh basil and croutons for garnishing

Directions

To skin tomatoes:

1. Boil a pot of water.
2. Lightly cut through the skin of a tomato and then immerse the tomato into the boiling water for about 20 seconds, or until you see the skin of the tomato start peeling off. The tomato shouldn’t be in the boiling water too long as you don’t want to cook it. You just want the tomato’s outer layer to soften so that the skin can come off easily.
3. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the tomato into a large bowl of icewater.
4. Use your fingers to easily remove the skin of the tomato.
5. Now cut the tomato into half and remove the hard stalk bit, and then cut the tomato into smaller pieces and put it aside for the soup.

To make the soup:

1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, onions, garlic and chicken stock. Boil for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes and onions soften.
2. Blend the soup in a blender until smooth.
3. In the empty pot, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux. Gradually whisk in bit by bit of the blended tomato soup so that no lumps form. Once there is a good amount of smooth tomato soup in the pot, you can just pour the rest of the tomato soup in.
4. Season with the sugar or add in salt if you wish to taste.

I used a thermal pot for step no. 3, so that after bringing the soup to boil, I put it into the thermal pot for the soup to ‘rest’ and its flavours to blend.

I then serve the soup with fresh chopped basil, which brings out the very bright tomato flavour of the soup. I also throw some homemade croutons into the soup as garnish. Yummy!