Moroccan Tomato Soup 1991
Newspaper food writing is an odd blend of journalism, trend spotting and whim. While the food coverage in The Times has grown increasingly news-driven over the past two decades, the opinions and tastes of the food sections writers have always guided the topics.
Sometimes there is no real reason for a story. Sometimes its just that its hot out and people want to eat cold food, and thats that. Such was the case with a 1991 column by Barbara Kafka, the author of the best-selling Microwave Gourmet. Kafka recalled eating Louis Diats vichyssoise at the Ritz-Carlton in New York as a young girl, which inspired her lasting love for chilled soups. Spurred by laziness, a dislike of heat and my own love of the genre, she wrote, I set out to devise a group of cold soups that can be made virtually without heat, in a kind of international journey of reading and remembering. And off she went, ruminating on grape gazpacho, African peanut soup, Russian spinach soup and this Moroccan tomato soup.
Kafkas tomato soup isnt merely conveniently cool, its exceptional, in part because its not gazpacho, the ubiquitous, aggressively seasoned and often disjointed soup. Kafkas soup is by no means meek: heat neednt be caloric, but it can be aromatic. Her recipe thrives on a pulse of cumin, cayenne, garlic, cilantro and lemon juice, which tames the spiciness and makes the sweet tomatoes sparkle.
Summer Tomatoes: Stuffed Sweet And Souped Up
Few foods are as versatile as the tomato, as Martha Rose Shulman demonstrates in this weeks Recipes for Health. She offers tomatoes that are Sicilian and stuffed, slow roasted, sweet and sour, souped up or succulent in salad.
Check out Ms. Shulmans five new tomato recipes below.
Tomato, Spelt and Herb Salad: This is a light summer chopped salad with chewy and crunchy textures. Give it time to marinate for the best flavor.
Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes With Basil Oil: Once roasted, cherry tomatoes become even sweeter. Serve these as an appetizer or side dish.
Tomato Straciatella: Tomatoes make an unusual appearance in this Italian-style egg drop soup.
Sicilian Stuffed Tomatoes: These stuffed tomatoes can be made more flavorful with additional anchovies.
Our 17 Coziest Vegetarian Soups
These heartening recipes are here to convince you that comfort is best served by the spoonful.
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For dreary days and weary souls, there is soup. Whether youre stirred by brothy or blended varieties, those that lean creamy and rich or light and verdant, the perfect soup is out there for you. Find your match in at least one of the vegetarian recipes below.
Sue Li describes this brothy number as the perfect salve for cold winter days, and her recipe comes together in just 20 minutes. The noodles and poached egg add richness, and the soup builds flavor from greens, mushrooms, soy sauce and sesame oil. The broth alone is capable of instantly lifting spirits.
You can always count on Melissa Clark for comfort and her upgraded potato soup delivers. She describes it as if cheesy mashed potatoes became a cozy soup. It may not have the shortest ingredient list, but itll still delight, however you interpret it. According to one reader: I didnt bother to peel the potatoes, I forgot the lime and jalapeños, and I probably used the wrong kind of potato. And it was still the most delicious soup Ive ever made. In Melissa we trust!
Don’t Miss: Campbell’s Creamy Chicken And Rice Casserole
Featured Recipe: Tomato Soup With Bread
This dish is one way to take advantage of the beginning of tomato-and-basil season. Looked at carefully, its quite familiar fresh tomato sauce over bread instead of pasta but the eating experience is completely different. Its good at room temperature, which is how it is sometimes served in Italy, and its not even bad cold, like a thick gazpacho.
Voice From The Beyond
Rowans vision of starting a new life, in New Mexico or anywhere else, was turning to dust.
He and his girlfriend were hiding out from the local police, from federal agents working the case, from the people Rowan owed money, and from the fight promoters he tricked.
The Guns & Stuff robbery and the manhunt had put the town on edge. Rowans mother, still grieving for her son, was at the Chappel Dam Grocery when she heard about the attack. I thought, At least I know my son didnt do it, she said.
Her relief wouldnt last long. Soon, her phone rang. It was her son, Charlie, no longer dead.
For six weeks, she thought shed lost him, at age 25. She never said goodbye. Now, here he was, on the phone. He had one question for her: could she give him a ride?
“He’s lucky the cops got him before the fighters did.”
His mother drove in a fog, past the familiar barns, churches and homes that lined the road. Finally, on the right, she saw her son, waving his arms to flag her down.
Still confused, she asked where hed been for so long. This was all a lie? They both started crying. Rowan mumbled something about being out of state. He got out of the car at his girlfriends home, the same place his mother had cried during his memorial the month before.
His mother went to the sheriffs office in tears the next day to tell Cuddie that her son was indeed alive. She said she was afraid hed robbed Guns & Stuff and hit old man Robinette.
Don’t Miss: Lipton Onion Soup Mix Potato Recipe
Tomato Soup Spice Cupcakes
While my kids were hesitant to taste a cake made with tomato soup, they eventually came around and gave it a try.
My daughter was a big fan, and went from saying she’d never try it to asking for a second slice. And my son, who is notoriously picky and not a fan of tomato soup, enjoyed the cake, saying he couldn’t taste the soup at all.
Apparently, whether it’s served in a bowl or baked into a cake, there’s nothing a can of soup can’t do.
Tomato Soup With Bread
Yield 4 servings
Summary
The tomatoes must be ultra-ripe and meaty the bread dense and flavorful the basil aromatic. Ideally, you’ll peel and seed the tomatoes, but this is a step you can skip if you’re pressed for time or feeling lazy.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
- 1 dried red chili, optional
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3 cups cored, peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes
- 2 cups stock, or strained tomato liquid, or water, or a combination, warmed
- 1/2 loaf day-old French or Italian bread, torn or cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup torn or roughly chopped basil leaves
Method
- 1. Put oil in a large, deep saucepan or casserole and turn heat to medium. A minute later, add onion, garlic and dried chili, if using. Season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until garlic is fragrant and golden and onion begins to soften, about 5 minutes.
- 2. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes break up, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add liquid, stir in bread and simmer for a minute more.
- 3. Take pot off heat, check seasonings and let sit until bread is saturated with soup, about 10 minutes.
- 4. Check seasonings, stir in basil, portion soup into bowls, and garnish with a drizzle of oil and more freshly ground black pepper.
Also Check: Crockpot Potato Soup With Frozen Hash Browns
How To Cook Perfect Tomato Soup
As we’ve been so soggily reminded over recent weeks, British summertime is as much a mindset as a season. Although such biblical deluges should come as no surprise , they can still throw the cook slightly off balance.
With barbecues and picnics off the menu for the moment, and stews, bakes and stodgy puddings singing their siren call again, it’s not easy to feel inspired about summer cooking. Soup, I think, is the ideal solution. Warming yet light, and perfect for those anaemic seasonal ingredients which won’t quite cut it in a salad, they’re the answer to all your problems. Except, perhaps, how to stop the rain killing your tomato plants.
Although we’re well into peak season for commercially grown, greenhouse tomatoes, most home gardeners won’t be enjoying a glut for another couple of months yet. In the meantime, practise with the the ripest ones you can find: if you don’t have a market nearby which sells the squishy ones off cheap, then buy them a good few days ahead and ripen them at home in the fruit bowl: as Lindsey Bareham explains in her mind-bogglingly comprehensive Big Red Book of Tomatoes, “tomatoes are a sub-tropical fruit and dislike the cold”. I know how they feel.
Food Photography: How To Shoot Soup
Andrew Scrivani is a freelance photographer who contributes to The New York Times. He writes the blog Making Sunday Sauce.
When I responded to Kim from Arkansas for my last post it became apparent to me that her question required a much more detailed answer. Kim asked how I photograph soups, and I gave a brief suggestion about using side lighting. But there is so much more to consider.
Soups have personality. They have so many different complexions that there is no one perfect way to shoot them. I would like to consider three different scenarios here: the Beautiful Soup, the Monochromatic Soup and the Brothy Soup.
The beautiful soup can be deceiving. Sometimes a soup that is chock full of lovely ingredients looks amazing to the eye but seems terribly flawed in front of the camera. The reason is that often there is too much to focus on and the image can get confusing. My approach to this is very careful styling and trying to create a distinct focal point though lighting and the focus of the camera. This bowl of lentil tomato soup was meticulously arranged and shot maybe 40 or 50 times to find the exact angle, even after I was satisfied with the lighting. My goal was to have the viewers eye train to the light source. See the way the beans created a texture, like a cobblestone walkway in the bowl? There is lot going on here, but I really wanted that detail to be the focus of the image.
The simple oil drizzle in this blended potato soup gave it texture.
Also Check: Campbell Soup Chicken And Rice Recipe With Broccoli
An Opportunity To Strike
On a cold March afternoon, Roxie Robinette served lunch to her husband, Richard. The bell rang next door in their store, Guns & Stuff: a new customer.
Richard got up, leaving Roxie behind to fold laundry in front of the TV.
Guns & Stuff was a mom-and-pop shop that sold revolvers, pistols and shotguns, along with hunting jackets and Skittles. Mounted buck heads eyed customers from the wall. A sign read, No Pissy Attitudes.
The gun store played the role a diner might in another town the place where neighbors gossip about the weather and one another. All of Gladwin knew Richard Robinette, a retired plumber and banjo player whod been in poor health. Even Rowan knew Robinette: he had recently sold Robinette a rifle he stole from a relative, Rowan said.
On the afternoon of March 18, the sheriff said, Michael Bowman drove Rowan and his girlfriend to the store in a maroon Chevrolet Blazer. Bowman was among Rowans closest friends, a lanky, baby-faced man in his early 20s with a criminal history of his own. A lawyer for Martinez did not respond to multiple requests for interviews. Bowman’s lawyer declined to comment.
Rowan sat in the back seat, wearing a trench coat and sneakers. He smeared black dollar-store makeup around his eyes and tied a red bandanna around his mouth. The finishing touch was a Batman mask he said he took from his girlfriends son.
Rowan was going to rob Guns & Stuff hit a lick was his term. His girlfriend would be the decoy.
Part 6
Provenal Tomato And Basil Soup
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I learned to make this soup years ago when I lived in France. If there are no fresh tomatoes at hand, use canned. The soup is delicious and silky if you thicken it with tapioca.
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
4 to 6 garlic cloves , minced
Salt to taste
2 pounds tomatoes, cored and diced, or 1 can chopped tomatoes with juice
Pinch of sugar
2 large sprigs basil, or about 16 leaves, plus 2 tablespoons slivered basil for garnish
1 quart water
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 Parmesan rind
1/4 cup rice or tapioca
Optional garnishes:
Garlic croutons
Grated or shaved Parmesan
1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven. Add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about five minutes. Stir in half the garlic and a generous pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds to a minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, basil sprigs or leaves, and remaining garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down and smell fragrant, 15 to 20 minutes.
If serving cold, refrigerate until chilled.
Yield: Serves four.
Advance preparation: The soup will keep for two or three days in the refrigerator and can be frozen.
Nutritional information per serving: 130 calories 4 grams fat 1 gram saturated fat 0 milligrams cholesterol 22 grams carbohydrates 4 grams dietary fiber 3 milligrams sodium 9 grams protein
A Guide to Better Nutrition
Also Check: Campbell Soup Chicken And Rice Recipe With Broccoli
