Recipe Tomato Basil Soup

[The Late Night Gourmet]

As far as I'm concerned, tomato soup should always be made with basil. I almost posted this as tomato soup, but tomato basil soup sounds more exotic. My wife’s uncle grows tomatoes…so many that he can’t eat them all. They’re incredibly tasty, but we can rarely finish using them in salads and sandwiches before they go bad. Hence, soup. I’ve never had enough good quality tomatoes to make a soup before, and the results were terrific. This is based on Ina Garten's recipe, but I skipped the cream, and added extra tomatoes.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon bacon grease or oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 carrots, shredded
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 pounds tomatoes, chopped roughly (or the equivalent canned San Marzano tomatoes)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup (tightly packed) fresh basil, shredded, plus more for garnish
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper, freshly ground
1 tablespoon salt, adjusted to taste

Directions

1. Melt bacon grease in a large pot. Sauté onion and carrots until softened and translucent, about 10 minutes. Clear a spot on the bottom of the pan and melt a bit more bacon grease, then add the garlic. Stir and scrape the garlic and grease mixture continuously for a minute to prevent the garlic from burning. Stir into the onions and carrots, then stir in the tomatoes and the sugar. Reduce heat to medium-low and heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Add basil, stock, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Working in batches, transfer to a blender and blend until pureed. Return to the pot and stir together. Serve with shredded basil as a garnish.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I THOUGHT that you used a blender for it.