Week 10: Tomato-zucchini soup

This week, we're making tomato-zucchini soup!

This is a rich soup that can be a starter, or if you're not in the mood for a three course dinner just serve it with some bread and it'll work as a full meal. In GW2, you make this soup by adding a few ingredients to tomato soup, for which I already gave a recipe. So I'm going to stay with the basic structure of the tomato soup as I gave it earlier, with a few adaptations to properly incorporate the ingredients for the tomato-zucchini soup. I roast the zucchini in the oven, which gives it an absolutely stunning flavour, but if you're pressed for time just cut them into chunks and sauté these for a  few minutes before adding them to the soup.

Tomato-zucchini soup

Ingredients (4 servings as main course with bread):

800 ml poultry stock, or vegetable stock for vegetarians (from a cube or homemade)
800 g tomatoes

2-3 zucchinis
1 tblsp sugar
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic

1 red chili pepper

1 tsp of fresh dill, chopped*
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste
100 ml cream, milk, or sour cream
25 g butter
30 g flour

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Centigrade. Cut the zucchinis in half lengthwise. Place with the cut side down on a sheet of baking paper. Rub the outside with oil. Place in the oven for 30 minutes, then check to see if they are browning unevenly. If they are, turn the baking sheet the other way; otherwise, leave as they are. Either way, roast them for another 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and place aside so they can cool down enough for you to handle.

With a knife, make a shallow cross on the bottom of each tomato, just so it punctures the skin. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Place the tomatoes in the boiling water for 20 seconds and then immediately remove them and place them in a bowl with cold water (add a few ice cubes to keep it really cold, if you like). When they've cooled down, after a minute or so, take them out of the water and peel off the skin. Cut the tomatoes in chunks, discarding the watery seeds and the core.

Remove the seeds from the chili pepper (see 'tip') and chop finely. Chop the onion and the garlic. Heat a bit of vegetable oil in a pot and gently sauté the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili pepper and dill and sauté for a further 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and turn the heat up. Bake for another 5 minutes, then add the poultry stock. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and transfer the soup to a bowl or food processor. Puree the mixture until it's smooth and drain through a sieve.

Cut the flesh from the zucchinis by laying them skin-side down, cutting along both sides and pulling the flesh out. Scrape your knife along the skin to remove any scraps of flesh left behind. Cut the flesh in bite-size chunks and discard the skins. In a large pot with a thick bottom, melt the butter over medium heat, until the butter stops bubbling but do not let it turn brown (we're making a white roux). Sieve part of the flour into the pot and stir well. Keep stirring until all the flour has been absorbed, then add the next portion of flour. When all the flour has been added, keep stirring until the roux is one firm ball. Next, add a cup of tomato soup and stir well until the mixture is smooth and even. Continue with the next cup of soup until all the soup has been added.
Add the zucchini chunks to the soup. Heat the soup through, add the sugar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir the cream in just before serving, or pour a little bit of cream in each individual bowl. Enjoy!

Tip: to remove the seeds from a chili pepper, cut off the top, then roll the pepper between your hands vigorously. The seeds will come loose and you can just shake them out. This is particularly useful if you want to cut the pepper into neat rings rather than just chopping it.

*: Don't worry about this ingredient if you don't have it, the recipe works just as well without

This soup goes great with, for example, the rosemary bread we made last week!