[Sca-cooks] Making Tomatoe Soup from Scratch

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Ian Griffen:
>Greetings to the cooks of the List
>
>I would like to make a tomatoe soup from scratch.  How would I do 
>it?  I would have to make a minium of 6 quarts.
>
>Thank you
>
>Ian Griffen

Here's a basic one (I'm making this up, so I hope it works; I'm kind 
of extrapolating from other recipes).

For six quarts (or multiply as needed):

~6 ounces butter
~6 ounces flour
~4 quarts white stock (beef, veal, chicken, vegetable, etc.)
~6 lbs fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or about 3 quarts 
canned, crushed tomatoes in puree
~2 tsp crushed, dried thyme, sage, mint or rosemary, or about 2 Tbs 
fresh, chopped (optional)
~salt and pepper to taste
~1/2 tsp ground cloves or cinnamon (optional)

Melt the butter in a stockpot and cook the flour in it, whisking to 
make a roux, which you cook slowly over low heat until just golden. 
Whisk in the stock and whip until smooth, then bring to a simmer and 
it it begins to thicken slightly. Skim skunge (this is a professional 
cook's term: it means crud or crap) off the top and discard.

Add the chopped tomatoes -- if fresh, you can peel and seed them, or 
just strain seeds and skin out at the end. If canned, just pour them 
in and strain it later.

Add dried herbs, if using, and cloves or cinnamon (if any).

Simmer, stirring frequently, for at least two hours over low heat. 
Watch for signs of sticking to the bottom of the pot. If the heat is 
high, you may need to add more liquid to make up for lost volume.

Add any fresh herbs (if using, and if you didn't use dried). Season 
with salt and pepper.

Puree the mixture in a blender or using one of those kewl immersion 
blenders that look like an outboard motor, and run it through a 
strainer to remove stray seeds, herb stems, and tomato skin shreds. 
Adjust seasoning as needed, and serve.

You can replace one quart of your stock with scalded, light cream or 
half-and-half for cream of tomato soup. Restaurants often use cream 
sauce at this stage, but then you have to adjust the amount of flour, 
since the sauce also contains some.

The best tomato soup I have ever had was at a tiny luncheonette near 
a Greyhound Bus station in Binghamton, NY, where the cook/owner, who 
looked like a late 60's motorcycle gang member, cooked enough bacon 
for rendered bacon fat to make the roux, then reserved the chopped 
bacon to return to the pot later as a garnish. He had also stirred in 
grated, fresh horseradish. He alleged that this was an English 
technique. Who was I to argue with a Hell's Angel who made good soup 
and had a lot of knives?

HTH,

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04