Читать книгу The First-Time Cook - Sophie Grigson, Sophie Grigson - Страница 43

Roasting the vegetables for a soup gives a great depth of flavour, and a hint of something darker and treaclier distilled from the heat-charred edges. It also happens to be a particularly simple way of setting about soup-making. Everything bar the stock is piled into a roasting tin and slid into the oven. You go away for 45 minutes or so, and then all you need do is liquidise the whole lot. And sieve it. Finito.

Serves 4–6

BASE AND MAIN INGREDIENTS

1.5kg (3lb 5oz) reddest tomatoes you can find, cut in half

1kg (21/4 lb) onions, peeled and cut into eighths

6 garlic cloves, unpeeled

3 big thyme sprigs

4 tablespoons olive oil

SEASONINGS

2 teaspoons caster sugar

salt and pepper

LIQUID

900ml (11/2 pints) Vegetable or Chicken Stock (see pages 15–17)

DRESSING UP (optional, but really good)

50ml (2fl oz) whipping cream

a small handful of basil leaves, chopped

1 Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7.

2 Put all the base and main ingredients and the seasonings into a large roasting tin. Use your hands to turn the vegetables so that they all get coated in oil and evenly seasoned. Roast uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring once, until patched with brown and phenomenally soft and tender. If the onions still appear a little firm, give the whole lot another stir and return to the oven for a further 15 minutes. Remove the thyme stalks.

3 Liquidise in batches with big slurps of stock to keep the whole lot moving (in a processor, or with a hand-held wand liquidiser). Sieve the resulting soup back into the pan, with any remaining stock. Stir well, then taste and adjust seasoning.

4 Reheat when needed, or serve chilled on a hot day.

5 The dressing-up basil cream is easy. Put the cream and most of the basil, together with a couple of pinches of salt, in a bowl and whisk together until the cream just holds its shape. Don’t over-do it or you will end up with butter. Not at all the idea. Drop a spoonful of the basil cream into the centre of each bowl of soup and top with a little of the remaining basil before passing around.