🇺🇸 United States and 🇬🇧 United Kingdom · and Britain
Cream of tomato soup
A smooth hot soup of cooked tomatoes puréed with onion and a butter or flour base, thinned with stock or milk and finished with cream; the everyday tomato soup of Anglo-American cooking, usually eaten with bread, crackers or a toasted cheese sandwich.
Origin and history
Tomato soup became a staple of American kitchens with canning: Campbell's launched a ready-to-serve tomato soup in 1895 and the condensed version in 1897, and it was among the first condensed soups the company sold. The cream-and-roux home form was fixed by standard cookery-school and newspaper recipes in the United States and Britain during the twentieth century.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 50 min
- Hands-on
- 25 min
Ingredients
- 60 g4 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 30 g1/4 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 x 800 g cans2 x 28 oz cans whole peeled tomatoes in juice, or about 1.6 kg / 3.5 lb ripe tomatoes, peeled
- 700 ml3 cups light chicken or vegetable stock
- 2 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 tsp dried
- 1 tsp sugar, only if the tomatoes are sharp
- 150 ml2/3 cup heavy (double) cream, warmed
- salt and white or black pepper, to taste
- basil leaves or crackers, to serve, optional
Method
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1. Melt the butter with the oil in a heavy pot over medium heat.
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2. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook for about 5 minutes, until soft and translucent but not browned.
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3. Stir in the flour and the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute, stirring, so the flour loses its raw taste.
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4. Add the tomatoes with their juice, crushing each one by hand, then the stock and the thyme.
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5. Bring to a boil, lower to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 30 minutes, until the tomatoes have fallen apart and the soup has thickened slightly. Remove the thyme stalks.
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6. Purée with an immersion blender (or in batches in a blender, letting the steam escape) until completely smooth. For a very fine texture, pass it through a sieve.
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7. Return the soup to a low heat, taste, and add the sugar if the acidity bites. Stir in the warm cream and heat through without boiling.
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8. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot, with basil, crackers or a toasted cheese sandwich.
Notes
- This is the classic Anglo-American soup: a roux of butter and flour gives body, stock thins it, and cream finishes it. Cookery-school versions (the CIA recipe) reduce the cream first and sieve the soup for extra silk; the home version above skips both.
- Canned tomatoes are the norm and usually better than out-of-season fresh ones; the tomato paste deepens the colour and the taste.
- Use milk instead of cream for the lighter diner-style soup the tinned versions imitate; do not boil it after adding dairy or it may split.
- Make-ahead: the soup keeps 4 days in the fridge and freezes well before the cream goes in.
- Not to be confused with pappa al pomodoro (thickened with bread), gazpacho (raw and cold) or Polish pomidorowa (a meat broth with rice or noodles), which are separate soups on this site.
Adapted from Cream of Tomato Soup, The Culinary Institute of America and Classic Tomato Soup, PBS Food.
At the festivals
Served at 1 festival in United States.
Earlier editions
- March 10, 2018