Ekev’ Recipe – Tomato and Bread Soup

Denise Phillips
This is a delicious Italian soup that is perfect to break a fast. Light, nourishing and tasty is what is required. One’s stomach often shrinks and despite expectations of a large meal, in reality this is not what happens. The soup is made with store cupboard ingredients and was originally created to use up stale bread but if you do not have any, just place the bread in the oven for 5 minutes and this will achieve the desired effect of thickening the soup. Ripe plum tomatoes when in season provide the best flavour, but as their season fades, you can substitute the fresh for tinned. Plum tomatoes are oval-shaped and smaller that the average but they have less liquid and firmer flesh.
Preparation Time: 10 minutes Cooking Time: 45 minutes Serves: 8 people


Ingredients

6 tablespoons olive oil

½ red chilli – de seeded and finely chopped – optional

175g stale bread – cut into cubes

2 onions – peeled and finely chopped

4 cloves garlic – peeled and finely chopped

1kg ripe plum tomatoes – peeled and chopped or 3 tins 400g peeled plum tomatoes – chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

4 tablespoons fresh basil

2 litres vegetable stock

Salt and freshly ground black pepper – to taste

Garnish: Extra virgin olive oil

Sprigs of fresh basil

Croutons for garnish


Method

1) Pre- heat the oven to 200 C/400F/ Gas mark 6.
2) Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons olive oil over the cubed bread. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.
3) Heat the remaining oil in a large saucepan and add the onion, garlic, chilli – if using and cook until they soften. Stir in the tomatoes, bread (leave some for garnish), sugar and basil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4) Cook over a moderate heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5) Add the stock to the tomato mixture, bring to the boil, cover and reduce the heat to simmer for 15 minutes.
6) Liquidise or puree 3 ladles of the soup and return to the saucepan.
7) Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly.
To serve the stylish way: Swirl a little extra virgin olive oil onto the soup and garnish with some sprigs of fresh basil and reserved croutons.
Denise Phillips
Denise Phillips is a professional chef, who trained with renowned restaurateur Prue Leith before setting up a successful catering business. Her quest to improve the quality of Jewish cooking led to a number of highly successful ‘hands-on’ cookery demonstrations all over the country and a commission to write four different books to date that have established her as a leading name in modern Jewish cooking with style. Her books include Modern Jewish Cooking, The Book of Jewish Cooking, Jewish Mamas Kitchen, and New Flavours of the Jewish Table. She writes regular food columns for the UK’s Jewish News, the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Recorder, Jewish Vegetarian Society, and for US publications including the Jewish Press in New York and the Jewish Advocate in Boston. Denise makes frequent media appearances and maintains a blog: http://www.jewishcookery.com/ To find out about her Jewish Cookery Recipe Collection Smartphone App Click Here.

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