Gordon Ramsay's Secret Weapons For Delicious Tomato Soup
Chef Gordon Ramsay may be best known as a television chef with a volcanic temper who's prone to throwing things and yelling at people on shows like "Hell's Kitchen" and "MasterChef," but even he sometimes needs a little TLC with some comfort food. And nothing hits the spot like a warm bowl of tomato soup. "It's coming back to me all those days I had off school," he recalled on his "Hell's Kitchen" YouTube channel. "I used to purposely lie about feeling ill just to get a bowl of my mother's tomato soup."
As you'd expect from Ramsay, who owns more than 80 different restaurants, his tomato soup is by no means ordinary and includes a few secret weapons to up the flavor and create an unforgettable yet fairly easy-to-prepare meal. In his culinary arsenal are fresh tomatoes that he sears on the stove before roasting them in the oven, a potato masher to use for a chunky consistency, and a sun-dried tomato pesto made with a mortar and pestle.
Ramsay uses a potato masher for a rustic-style soup
Gordon Ramsay starts his tomato soup with fresh ripe tomatoes that he sears on the stove with red onion — for more sweetness — and garlic. And since the recipe requires fresh tomatoes, you should make sure you keep the tomatoes you buy as fresh as possible by storing them upside down, which is the best way to store tomatoes. Ramsay again ups the sweetness factor with a touch of sugar and balances it all out with a bit of acidity thanks to a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar.
Instead of using a pot for this soup, Ramsay uses a deep roasting pan. After searing the vegetables, he roasts them for about 20 minutes and then adds chicken stock and cream. He then crushes the tomatoes with a potato masher for a chunkier tomato soup. If rustic tomato soup isn't your thing, you can achieve a more uniform consistency with a few pulses from an immersion blender. But these aren't Ramsay's only secret weapons to an unbeatable tomato soup.
A mortar and pestle help take things up a notch
Gordon Ramsay's tomato soup recipe is all about upping the tomato tastiness, and one way he achieves this is with a "punchy" sundried tomato pesto. Sun-dried tomatoes are packed with concentrated flavor that Ramsay releases by crushing and grinding them with an old-school mortar and pestle. He prefers using a mortar and pestle, which has been around for at least 35,000 years, instead of tossing the tomatoes in a food processor so he has more control over the results.
Since this is a pesto, Ramsay adds toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and extra virgin olive oil, and he finishes it off with some of the oil from the sun-dried tomato container for even more tomato-y goodness. Once the soup is done, Ramsay drizzles the sun-dried tomato pesto on top for a burst of flavor in an already mouthwatering dish. These secret weapons for a delicious tomato soup are fairly easy to incorporate into your own tomato soup recipe. Heck, the sun-dried tomato pesto could even improve canned soup in a pinch.