recipe sketches

When reading the wonderful 101 Cookbooks blog this morning, I realized that  recipes do not spring from the forehead of cooks fully formed like I always imagined they did.  Instead, a good cook draws on his or her years of experience with flavors and ingredients, and will try different things, making the dish a little bit differently over and over until it is "right."  Like I sketch.  I try the lines again and again, until they are right.  Finished recipes are the result of sketching in the kitchen.

When I was in Amsterdam last week, I had an amazing tomato soup on a drizzly day, sitting across the table from meriko at Cafe de Jaren, which was about the midpoint between our two hotels.  Today, I'm back in California again, working at home with the tail end of a cold, and wishing I were still in Amsterdam.  It is blustery outside, not quite fall, but getting there.  Our tomato plants were groaning under the weight of ripe tomatos when we got back, and now baskets of that bounty are all over the kitchen counter.  Must. Use. Tomatos.  Hey, I could make tomato soup for lunch!

So I hunted around a bit for some ideas: a little bit from Lobstersquad and a little bit from 101 Cookbooks, a little bit more from Lobstersquad.  And then I went in the kitchen to sketch.  So this is the result: my riff on the tomato soup at Cafe de Jaren.  It amuses me a bit that I'm actually writing this down, as I usually can't  manage to follow a recipe exactly as printed to start with, so keeping track of what I was doing while I was doing it was sort of strange.  And I always spice by taste, not by measure, so you're on your own with proportions there.  But it was really good, and I used almost half the tomatos and have plenty of soup left over for lunch tomorrow.

Garden Tomato Soup (a la Cafe de Jaren)

1/2 onion, chopped small (I used red because it was all I had, but a sweet onion would probably be good)
2 small sweet peppers, chopped small
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 cups mixed fresh tomatos, diced
1 1/2 c chicken broth (or bullion + water, if that's what you have)
1/3 c cream or half and half.
6-7 fresh basil leaves, chopped
zest of half a lemon
seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, cumin, corriander, sweet paprika, a bit of sugar

In a large sauce pan, saute the onion and pepper in oil and salt until soft.  Add the garlic and saute another minute or so.  Add diced tomatos (I diced and tossed in the pan as I went, so I had some tomatos cooked way down, some more firm - pre-dicing the tomatos would give you a more even texture in the finished soup.  If your tomatos have thick skin, you might want to skin them before dicing).  Simmer until the tomatos have lost their shape - 5-7 minutes.  Add broth, basil, zest and spices. Use an immersion blender to blend the soup until smooth or desired consistency.  Stir in cream.  Adjust spices to taste.

Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche, ribbons of fresh basil, and a big hunk of good bread.  Good for what ailes ya.

I was using Early Girl and Juliet tomatos in this soup, because that's what we grew this year, but I bet that using some stronger-flavored heirloom tomatos would send this soup off into a whole other realm of yumminess.  For the record, the taste wasn't really so much like the Jaren soup, but the texture was very close, and I enjoyed it just as much.  Although meriko is still on a plane somewhere, not quite home yet, and I was eating alone in my kitchen, so the company wasn't quite as good.

Comments

[meriko]

i'm back, i'm back.

let's plan a kitchen sketch together in october, ok? :)

[Kat]

God that sounds good. I love a good tomato soup but haven't had one in a long while. I'll bet leftovers the day after (if there are any) are even better when the spices really work their way in. Enjoy, and hope you're feeling better.

[bridgette]

mmm, that sounds good. Thanks for sharing the recipe and your process. I love tomato soup. You know what I put in my hot bowl of tomato soup? A dollop of goat cheese. yummmm.