Tomato Soup in the Style of Sauce

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This dish, Tomato Soup in the Style of Sauce, is from That Sounds So Good and is so simple it’s actually hard to write anything about it. Its existence owes more to tomato sauce (hence the name) than it does to classic tomato soup, which for most of us probably came from a can, and if not, from canned tomatoes.

Canned tomato soup is chilly food weather and it begs for a grilled cheese. Fresh tomato soup waits for the sun to go down so that turning on a burner doesn’t feel criminal. This is a few-ingredient-fast-cook process, designed to preserve the raw, sweet, aromatic qualities of the tomatoes and to reduce the time that anyone should spend cooking in summer’s fourth quarter. (Sorry, friends, but it’s August now and we all have to come to grips with that.)

The point of origin for this soup/sauce or saucy soup is the 10-minute burst-tomato sauce that I like to make with cherry tomatoes, or the short-simmered grated tomato technique I use for my spicy scampi dish. Those are both sauces, and I wanted this soup to be as delicious as the spoonfuls of sauce that you sip off of wooden spoons while your tomatoes simmer, or as scrumptious as the last little bits of sauce left in the bowl after you finish your pasta.

There are no aromatics—no chopped onion or anything like that—only the garlic-infused oil that’s left from gently frying some garlic slices before you make the soup. Those little chips, used as garnish, are deeply savory and toasty in contrast to the soft lusciousness of what’s in the bowl.

Fun fact: This is the dish I’m eating on the back cover of TSSG. Bowls by MONDAYS Ceramics, shirt by Sezane, grown-out hair by the pandemic!

An outtake, but man, that looks insane!

Here are seven other stupidly-simple things I would like you to make/eat this month:

1. Blueberry waffles. Take your favorite pancake recipe, add blueberries, and do it in a waffle iron. (I’m using Alison Roman’s pancake recipe from Sweet Enough to much success.) Butter puddles and maple required. Great houseguest offering that will get you invited back.

   The rest of this summer dish list has had the paywall removed. If you decide to subscribe anyway, know that your support will go right back into my work developing recipes, shooting videos, and writing about all of it. If you’re reading this, please join us!

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2. Watermelon, cucumber, and feta salad, with thinly sliced shallots or onions, olive oil, salt, tajín, and a squeeze of lime or dash of vinegar. Not new; still good.

3. Go to a 7-Eleven and get a large cup, fill it up 60% with ice and 40% with Diet Coke (or your soda of choice), then drive off into the sunset. Best following a day at the beach.

4. Steamed lobster, steamed corn, sweet butter, sliced tomatoes. This is my annual birthday dish and I am grateful every year to be a summer baby.

5. Hard-pack coffee ice cream with chocolate sprinkles on a sugar cone. Will take over soft serve any day.

6. Raspberries by the handful, straight to the face.

7. PB&J on soft bread. Make it messy. Be generous. Bring it to the beach, the lake, on a hike, to a picnic, etc. It’s good when it sits for a while and the jam sogs out the bread a bit.

Love ya,

Carla

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And heeeeeeerrre’s the recipe!

Tomato Soup In The Style Of Sauce

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Recipe 8/13/23

Tomato Soup in the Style of Sauce

Adapted from That Sounds So Good

You know how sometimes you’re eating spaghetti with a delectable fresh tomato sauce, and when you get to the bottom of the bowl, there are no noodles left, but just enough sauce for a last little forkful or swipe of bread? This soup is meant to re-create that perfect bite, but you get a whole bowlful.  I wouldn’t use canned tomatoes for this; they’ll wind up tasting thin and acidic because of the abbreviated simmering time. Save your San Marzanos for making my Sunday Ragu or Meatballs.

2-4 Servings

Ingredients

3 pounds beefsteak tomatoes

6 garlic cloves 

⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving 

Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper 

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, plus more for serving 

Handful basil leaves, stems attached 

Flaky salt, for serving

Quarter and core the tomatoes, then transfer them to a food processor. Pulse in short bursts until finely chopped, taking care not to aerate or liquefy them in the process. (Alternatively, pass the tomatoes through the medium disc of a food mill, or finely chop by hand, reserving all the liquid.) Set pureed tomatoes aside. 

Thinly slice the garlic. Combine garlic and 1⁄3 cup oil in a medium saucepan, then place over medium heat. Starting in a cold pan will give you more control over the cooking process; garlic that gets too brown will be unpleasantly bitter. Season with kosher salt and black pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic is pale golden and starting to crisp, about 8 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the garlic to a small plate. Spread the slices out so they’re not overlapping and set aside for topping the soup. They will darken a bit and will get crispier as they cool.

Add the tomatoes to the pan with the garlic oil and season with kosher salt and red pepper flakes. Add the basil and stir to combine. Raise the heat to medium-high and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is reduced by about a third and tomatoes are tender, 16 to 18 minutes. Pluck out the basil. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with garlic chips and a pinch of flaky salt. Drizzle with more oil and pass more red pepper flakes at the table.

From the Market

Beefsteak tomatoes

Basil

Spin It

Use ripe plum or Campari tomatoes instead of beefsteaks 

Any type of basil would work— Thai, purple, Italian, etc.

At Home

Garlic 

Olive oil 

Salt and pepper 

Red pepper flakes 

Flaky salt

Spin It

Use any type of crushed red pepper you like: Ordinary red pepper flakes are pretty spicy; Aleppo pepper, Urfa biber, and gochugaru are less so 

If you don’t have flaky salt, finish the soup with a little kosher salt

If you don’t want to make the garlic chips, store-bought fried shallots are an okay substitute