Rob’s Recipe of the Week: An End-of-Summer Soup | Canalside Community Food

My housemate gave me this recipe (adapted from Gordon Ramsey) because he claimed it was the best soup he’s ever had. I overspiced my attempt so i’ll leave you to decide whether he’s right! I topped up my share with a friend’s garden tomatoes, but the recipe can be scaled down if you have less than is needed. I made 5 lunch sized portions from 1.2kg of tomatoes.

Tomato soup with sundried tomato pesto

Ingredients:
SOUP:
2 red onions, peeled and sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
1⁄2–1 tsp cayenne pepper, to taste (1/2 makes for a spicy soup if you’re using CORE’s cayenne pepper!)
olive oil, for drizzling
1.5kg ripe tomatoes, cored and halved
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
100ml double cream (soya alternative works fine)
PESTO:
2–3 tbsp pine nuts
75g sundried tomatoes, drained, oil reserved and finely chopped
50g Parmesan cheese, grated (welcome suggestions for vegan replacements, the cheese is the bulk of the pesto in this recipe so not sure you can manage without)
olive oil

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Use a roasting tray on the hob at medium heat to brown the onions, garlic and pepper for a few minutes. Then add the tomatoes face down and move to high heat. Season with salt/pepper and add sugar and vinegar. Cook until tomatoes begin to caramelise (3-4 minutes). Stir and move to oven for 20-25 minutes. (If they blacken a little that’s fine, it adds to the flavour)

Make the pesto while you wait. Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan and using a pestle and mortar, pound the sundried tomatoes to a paste, season with salt and add the pine nuts, continuing to pound to resemble pesto. Stir in parmesan and add a good glug each of tomato oil and olive oil to make it look like pesto again.

Get the tomatoes out and back on the hob, adding the stock and simmering for 4-5 minutes. Then add the cream for 2-3 minutes stirring well. Then blend and serve with dollops of pesto on top!