Tomato Basil Soup
Few things go together so well as fresh tomatoes and fresh basil.
I can recall the first time I ate Tomato Basil Soup. It was the early 1980s when something of a Country French resurgence was all the rage in the culinary world. For those of you around back then, this was the time you first learned about a delicious, savory egg dish in a flaky pie crust called Quiche, and Crepe restaurants starting popping up all over the country.
A Country French bistro restaurant concept called Le Madeleine, founded in 1983 in Dallas Texas with the financial backing of legendary retailer Stanley Marcus, was attracting customers by the bushel. Along with Quiche Lorraine, Tomato Basil Soup was one of its signature dishes that remains on their restaurant menu today in their 60 locations throughout Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Washington, DC. Their first store, the one I ate at shortly after it opened, was still in operation when I first posted this recipe in 2010.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s, and believed that tomato soup was that sickeningly sweet, acidic, watery, pinkish liquid that came out of a red and white Campbell's Soup can, Le Madeleine's garden fresh Tomato Basil Soup was a sublime discovery. Full of robust tomato flavor and seasoned with delicate hints of garlic and Parmesan cheese, then finished with a resounding garden green kick of fresh basil, their Tomato Basil Soup was worth coming back for time and again.
A Cookbook Intended for Mature Audiences
Fast forward to 1998, and my Number One Fan bought me a cookbook as a Valentine's Day gift called Inter-Courses - an aphrodisiac cookbook published in 1997 by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge. It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek recipe book, and its book cover marketing boasts:
"Ever since Marc Anthony fist fed Cleopatra grapes, sensual foods have been intertwined with romance. Inter-Courses - an aphrodisiac cookbook follows suit, bringing more than 85 heart-melting dishes to the table, the bed or wherever one might be entertaining."
I should mention that the book is M-rated, but well written, highly stylized with glossy pages and sensuous, but tasteful photography. The recipes were not really the point of the book, but it is from these pages that we found our first Tomato Basil Soup recipe, which my Number One Fan has refined over the years and made it part of her repertoire.
You can use canned tomatoes for this recipe. Today's Con-Agra method of field processing vine ripened tomatoes gives you a consistently high quality product at an inexpensive price. Yes, you can use fresh tomatoes, but the work would only be worth it if you are pulling them out of your own garden.
You must use fresh basil, however. Dried will not do. You can also use the fresh basil that comes in a tube, in a pinch, or fresh basil that is water packed. But garden fresh chopped basil is best; so I encourage you to go to the trouble.
You will need to bring out your blender for this dish, or if you have an immersion blender, so much the better and it makes for much easier clean-up.
Tomato Basil Soup
Ingredients
- 1 medium Vidalia, Walla-Walla, Texas 1015 or other sweet white onion, finely diced
- 4 tbsp garlic, minced
- 2-3 tbsp olive oil
- 1- 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes (like, Hunt's)
- 2 - 15 oz cans tomato sauce (like, Hunt's)
- 1- 1/2 cups chicken broth (like Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
- 4 oz chopped fresh basil, plus 4-6 leaves
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp anchovy paste (like, Reese)
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (like, Kraft)
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 8-10 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat in a soup pot until tender, but not caramelized.
- Add the tomatoes and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Then add the tomato paste, chicken broth, cream, the fresh basil, tomato paste and anchovy paste.
- Using the immersion blender, blend the ingredients until the mixture is smooth.
- Simmer on medium low heat for 30 minutes.
- Add the Parmesan cheese, and season with salt & pepper. Stir well to combine.
- Dish up into soup bowls and garnish with the individual basil leaves and an additional sprinkle of Parmesan cheese if desired.
Notes
- If you do not have an immersion blender, you will need to allow the mixture to cool to room temperature after Step #2. Do not attempt to use a standard blender with hot liquid.
- Once you have homogenized everything, you can proceed with Step #3.
