You know it’s winter when you start trawling through your favourite soup recipes! I’ve shared our family favourite here (if you know me, you know that it can’t take longer than 10 minutes to cook, or have a fancy ingredient list!) I’d love to hear back from you if you would like to share your own favourite soup recipe.
INGREDIENTS
Canned Tomatoes – chopped in juice variety / 800 gms
(2 cans)
Chopped Onion 1/2 cup
Garlic Cloves crushed 2 tbsp
Bay leaf 1
Basil 1 tbsp*
Crushed Fennel Seeds 1 tsp
Brown Sugar 1/2 tsp
Salt 1 tsp
Freshly cracked pepper (to taste)
Olive Oil / a generous slug
Water 1 ltr
To serve – torn basil leaves / fresh cream
METHOD
– In a heavy bottomed stock pot or pan, heat the olive oil along with the bay leaf.
– When the oil is hot, add the chopped onions and garlic.
– Once the onions turn translucent, add the sugar and let caramelise.
– Stir occasionally (if you stir too often, the onions don’t sit on the hot surface long enough to caramelise and will actually take longer to cook!)
– Add the tomatoes, basil (if using dried), fennel along with salt & pepper and stir in well.
– Cook together about 5 minutes till the tomatoes turn a rich red colour.
– Add water and bring to the boil. Start with about half the water and add as much to bring to your preferred consistency.
*If you’re using fresh basil leaves, add now.
– Fish the bay leaf out and using a stick blender, blitz to your preferred consistency.
– We love this with a drizzle of fresh cream and torn basil leaves on top.
Homemade croutons make this a hearty and restaurant worth meal.
To make the CROUTONS:
Roughly chop up crusty bread and drizzle olive oil along with basil, rosemary, flaky sea salt & freshly cracked pepper.
Put into a hot oven for 10 minutes, turning once in between to ensure all sides are browned and crispy.
When you pull these out of the oven, grate some parmesan & mix through, for extra oomph!
Put these into the bowl just before serving to ensure they stay crispy. The hot croutons will soak up the soup…. yummmmm
(You could use also stock in place of water – at our home, using store bought stock is not an option due to allergy issues. We just have to try and eat as clean as possible!)