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
A Legacy Of Hot Dog Onion Sauce
Sometimes a food becomes so pervasive, so accepted, so much a part of New York life, that you forget that once upon a time, it wasnt there. That is the case with that tangy red onion sauce that is slathered over hot dogs in New York alongside sweet relish and sauerkraut. Similar to the frumpy oversize black-and-white cookies, lifelong New Yorkers may never realize that its something that is native to this city.
The man behind todays sauce, Alan S. Geisler, died last week at the age of 78, as The Record of Bergen County reported. Half a century ago, hot dog vendors went through the time-consuming process of making their own onion sauce, but Mr. Geislers version made at the behest of a hot dog and bun supplier who later became his partner superseded all of those. If you are slurping up the red onion sauce in New York , chances are the sauce was made by Sabrett, the supplierbehind Katzs Delicatessen, Grays Papaya, Papaya King, the legendary Dominicks truck in Queens and the dirty water dog carts.
The sauce which is made from vinegar, onion, tomato paste and other ingredients is the subject of much speculation andlonging by displaced former New Yorkers.
Then there are the more unconventional offerings like cream cheese and scallions or fried egg and melted American cheese, both served at Amazing Hot Dog, which has had a tumultuous history.
So how do you like your hot dogs?
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 shed 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 couldnt taste the soup at all.
Apparently, whether its served in a bowl or baked into a cake, theres nothing a can of soup cant do.
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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.
Try New York Times Cooking’s Take On Roasted Tomatoes And Cheese Pasta
The roasted tomato and feta cheese TikTok trend may be in the rearview, but this one-pan pasta inspired by the viral sensation is a delicious adaptation.
New York Times Food columnist Melissa Clark joined “Good Morning America” to share her streamlined version of a recipe first made popular by Finnish blogger Jenni Hayrinen.
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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, youll peel and seed the tomatoes, but this is a step you can skip if youre pressed for time or feeling lazy.
Ingredients
- 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
Final Steps For Balanced Flavor
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
The best tomatoes should have high levels of both acidity and sweetness the best sauces will have those flavors as well, but they need to be in balance. Slow cooking is the best way to achieve it.
Canned tomatoes invariably have some citric acid added to them in order to increase their acidity. Slowly reducing the puréed tomatoes on the stovetop not only creates new flavor compounds, adding complexity to the sauce, but it also gets rid of water content, intensifying the flavors that are already there.
One other reason to go slow: If you aren’t really careful, high heat can cause unwanted browning, created roasted, caramel notes in your sauce. This isn’t a good thing. I tend not to be careful, so I hedge my bets by keeping the heat minimal.
After an hour of slow simmering, the sauce was nearly perfect, but was missing a couple of key elements. A little extra sugar helped to balance out the newly-intensified acidity, and a pinch of pepper flakes added a not-overwhelming level of heat. Cooking a new batch and adding the pepper flakes to sauté in the butter-olive oil mixture right from the beginning made it even better.
In the end I had a sauce with just the right balance of flavor for my New York-style pies. Sweet, a little hot, and intensely savory, with a texture that helps it meld in beautifully with the cheese, the way a good pie should. And here’s a non-shocker: It’s also good served with pasta.
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
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Cook Down The Tomatoes
1. Thoroughly wash the tomatoes, then cut them in halves or quarters. Be sure to leave out any pieces that look unsavory or off so that you dont introduce bacteria or mold.
2. On medium heat, toss the tomatoes into the pot, along with the onion and a few pinches of salt. Stir often.
3. The tomatoes are ready for pressing when theyre tender and the mixture is mostly liquid. This will take around45 minutes. Dont rush the process!
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?
Hes 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.
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World’s Easiest Tomato Sauce Is Also The Most Delicious
- F.I.T., State University of New York
- Cornell University
Like magic, this lip-smacking sauce requires just four ingredients and hardly any work at all.
It’s hard now to imagine a time when Italian food was not the norm in just about every kitchen in the United States. Thankfully, the goddess of Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan, changed that in the 1970s when she started giving cooking lessons in her New York City apartment and publishing recipes in the New York Times. Her first cookbook, “The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating” published in 1973 pretty much changed the way much of America eats.
There is so much to learn from Hazan’s approach to cooking and eating. She favored handmade food using local seasonal ingredients and hipsters think they invented everything? But one of the true beauties of her cuisine is its simplicity. And perhaps nowhere is that simplicity more evident than in her four-ingredient tomato sauce. While one of my favorite tomato sauces ever is Scott Conant’s miraculous tomato and basil sauce from Scarpetta, his recipe is a bit complicated with its 16 ingredients and 15 steps. Hazan’s, on the other hand, is just one of those magical recipes in which the sum is magnificently greater than its few simple parts.
Seeking Sweetness: How To Sweeten Tomato Sauce
As taste tests have shown time and time again, folks like tomato sauces that are both acidic and sweet. The problem is, tomatoes on their own are not very sweetfar less sweet than I like them, anyhow. Let me admit something here: In the past I’ve been known to spike my tomato sauce with a touch of sugar, a move that annoys hardliners to no end, apparently. I’m not backing down on that stance: adding sugar is a perfectly fine way to add sweetness to a sauce.
A perfectly fine way, but not the best way. There are other methods that allow you to add sweetness while simultaneously adding layers of nuanced flavor to the mix.
Serious Eats
Many folks advise adding carrots to red sauce in order to add that sweetness. I tried grating carrots and cooking them down with the garlic right from the start. It certainly makes the sauce sweeter, but it also makes it taste like carrot soup.
A much better approach is to simply cut a carrot into rough chunks and add it to the pot while the sauce simmers. Remember that onion I didn’t want to end up in my sauce? Here’s where it comes into play: I also added a raw onion in there to give it a touch more sweetness along with some oniony aroma without overpowering it or ruining the texturea trick I learned from Marcella Hazan’s infamously simple buttery tomato sauce.
I brought everything to a simmer, then let it cook for several hours.
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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!
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‘mater Matters: The Best Tomatoes For Sauce
The first question is the most important: what tomatoes do we use? If you’re lucky, you can get perfect tomatoes from a farmer or perhaps your backyard during the summer, and if you can, then Daniel has already showed us how to make the best tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes.
If, however, you’re like most of us, your best bet for good tomatoes is in a can.
At the supermarket, you’ll see canned tomatoes in a variety of formscrushed, diced, in sauce, etcbut what you’re looking for are whole peeled plum tomatoes packed in juice or puree. While it’s possible to find a decent can of crushed tomatoes, the tomatoes packed whole are almost invariably better quality than those used for crushed or diced tomatoes, and they give you more freedom to chop them to whatever size you’d like.
Serious Eats
Go with a trusted brand of tomatoes if you have a favorite: of the readily-available, American-produced tomatoes, I like Muir Glen and Cento the best. If you can find them, you’ll never go wrong with D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes imported from Italy. The D.O.P. seal ensures that they were grown, harvested, and processed under very strict protocols that guarantee a certain base quality.
I can hear you now: “D.O.P. doesn’t necessarily mean the best!” And it’s true: It’s possible to find better tomatoes if you know where to look. But the D.O.P. San Marzanos are readily available and come with a guarantee of quality. I like that.
Serious Eats
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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.
Quick Fresh Tomato Sauce
I spent a glorious morning at our local farmers market last weekend, buying everything in sight, carrots, potatoes, garlic, corn, squash, beets. Everything looked gorgeous, freshly-picked and full of life. I especially couldnt resist the tomatoes, plump, juicy, and vibrant red, cherry tomatoes in various shades and sizes, gnarly striped heirloom tomatoes, ordinary slicing tomatoes, and baskets of plum tomatoes for making sauce. Which is what we are doing today.
It will be a wonderful thing, three to four months from now, to dig into your freezer and pull out a container of home-made tomato sauce. Think of it a building block to great food, and imagine how good it will taste with meatballs, or in a spaghetti sauce, or a soup. You will thank yourself for the effort you make now, and with this recipe, from Sam Sifton at Cooking with the New York Times, it is not much effort at all.
To make this sauce, five pounds of tomatoes are cut in half horizontally, the seeds are removed , and the cut side of the tomato is pressed through the large holes of a box grater. This is a slightly messy job, but once its finished the rest is quick and easy. The recipe estimates you will have about 4 cups of grated tomato pulp I had six cups, so added a bit more of the rest of the ingredients to keep the flavours balanced.
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