The first bowl of Roasted Tomato Basil Soup that ruined me for every other version was in Lucca, on a rainy Tuesday in late September. I ducked in off Via Fillungo because I could smell garlic from the street.
The place had eight tables and a paper menu taped to the wall. The owner, a woman named Marta with flour still on her apron, waved me toward a stool at the counter and said something fast in Italian that I did not catch.
Her nephew translated. She was making soup. Did I want soup.
The Trattoria Off Via Fillungo in Lucca
The bowl came out darker than I expected. Not red like a can of Campbell’s, more the colour of a terracotta pot. She had roasted the tomatoes first, she said, until the skins wrinkled and the sugar caramelised at the edges.
Then she milled the whole thing through a food mill that hung on a hook above the stove. No cream, no sugar, just tomatoes and olive oil and garlic and basil.
I asked her to write it down. She laughed and tore a corner off a brown paper bag on the counter, the kind she gets her tomatoes in at the covered market at Mercato del Carmine. She scribbled the method in blue biro and drew a small oven with a happy face on it, which I still have folded in a drawer at home.
She would not call it pappa al pomodoro. Pappa al pomodoro has stale bread in it, she said, and it is a peasant dish from further south in Tuscany. This was her own version, silkier, a little more American maybe, learned from a cousin who cooked in Chianti in the nineties.
Why Roasted Tomato Basil Soup Is Not the Red Can
Here is what I did not understand until I sat at Marta’s counter. The tomato soup most of us grew up on in the States is a condensed base, cooked-down tomato paste and milk thinned to your liking.
Roasted Tomato Basil Soup is a different animal. The depth comes from slow-roasting whole tomatoes until their edges caramelise, not from paste and not from a sugar bomb to fake the sweetness.
Ina Garten put this style on the American map with her 2002 book, though Italian cooks have been coaxing sweetness out of tomatoes over fire and in wood ovens for centuries. The lineage runs through Tuscan pappa al pomodoro and French bisque technique. It lands, oddly enough, in a lot of home kitchens in LA in January when the weather turns.
One more thing. You do not need cream.
Marta did not use it. Many traditional Italian versions are dairy-free and get their body from the food mill purée alone. I have made it both ways and I prefer it without.
What I Used
- Three pounds of ripe plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, the reddest ones I could find at the Wednesday farmers’ market in Santa Monica
- A quarter cup of good extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing
- A tablespoon of kosher salt and a teaspoon and a half of freshly cracked black pepper, divided
- Two tablespoons of unsalted butter
- Two medium yellow onions, chopped
- Six cloves of garlic, minced
- A quarter teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
- A twenty-eight ounce tin of whole San Marzano tomatoes, the ones I get from Bay Cities Italian Deli
- Four cups of loosely packed fresh basil leaves, plus more torn for the top
- Four sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves stripped
- Four cups of chicken stock, homemade if I have any in the freezer
Cooking It in My Kitchen
The oven goes on to 400 F. I halve the tomatoes cut side up on my big rimmed sheet pan, the one with a slight warp from years of pizzas, and drench them in olive oil and salt.
Into the oven for forty-five minutes. Twenty minutes in, the kitchen smells like a Tuscan garden in August.
Sweet and warm. A little grassy underneath.
My apartment does not have a proper vent hood and the smell stays on my clothes for hours. I do not mind.
The first time I made this I blackened the edges thinking char equals depth. It does not. Scorched tomatoes go bitter and you can taste it through the whole pot.
Now I pull the pan the moment the tips just kiss brown. Meanwhile the onions sweat in butter and olive oil over low heat with the garlic and a pinch of chilli flakes.
Ten minutes, twelve maybe. The onions go soft and just barely golden where they touched the pan. I keep the heat low because the garlic punishes you otherwise.
Then in go the tinned San Marzanos, crushed against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon, along with the thyme. When the roasted tomatoes come out I scrape every jammy bit of them and their pan juices into the pot with the stock.
Gentle simmer for forty minutes. Basil goes in at the very end, off the heat. This part matters more than any other step.
Add basil at the start and its aroma cooks out and turns slightly bitter. Let it wilt into the hot soup for two minutes and the whole pot smells like Marta’s counter again.
Getting the Texture Right
The food mill does the heavy lifting here. Mine has a wobbly clamp and I hate it and I love it in equal measure. It catches every seed and skin and leaves a soup that is silky in a way a blender cannot match.
If you blend, pass the result through a fine mesh sieve after. Blended seeds are where the bitterness hides, and most of the time when people complain a tomato soup is sharp, that is the culprit. Not the tomatoes needing sugar.
I serve it with a proper sourdough grilled cheese most Sundays. Extra sharp cheddar, salted butter, low heat, patience. That combo is not Italian at all, it is American diner comfort, and it is the one I keep coming back to.
Before I ladle it out I drizzle good olive oil across the top and tear a few basil leaves over each bowl. Sometimes a swirl of cream if I have people over and want it to look pretty. Never for me alone.
Cold, spooned straight out of the pot at midnight standing in front of the fridge, it is somehow better than fresh. I do not know why. I just know it is.
Marta’s paper bag still lives in my kitchen. Every time I make this I think of the rain on the cobbles outside and the way she poured a bowl without ceremony. That is the whole recipe, really.
Roasted Tomato Basil Soup
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Preheat the oven to 400 F and arrange a rack in the middle position.
- Place the halved plum tomatoes cut side up on a rimmed half sheet pan. Drizzle with the 1/4 cup olive oil and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon kosher salt and 1 teaspoon black pepper. Toss gently to coat, then arrange cut side up in a single layer.
- Roast for 45 minutes, until the tomatoes are caramelized at the edges and shriveled but still juicy. Do not let them blacken, as scorched tomatoes turn the soup bitter.
- While the tomatoes roast, warm a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Melt the butter with a splash of olive oil, then add the chopped onion, minced garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes.
- Sweat the aromatics gently for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring often, until the onion is soft, translucent, and just barely golden at the edges. Do not brown the garlic.
- Add the canned plum tomatoes with their juice, crushing them lightly against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Stir in the thyme leaves.
- Scrape the roasted tomatoes and every bit of their pan juices into the pot. Pour in the chicken stock and stir to combine.
- Bring the soup to a gentle simmer over medium heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the flavors are concentrated and the soup has thickened slightly.
- Turn off the heat and stir in the fresh basil leaves, letting them wilt into the hot soup for about 2 minutes so the aroma stays bright.
- Working in batches, pass the soup through a food mill fitted with the medium disk back into a clean pot to remove seeds and skins, yielding a silky purée. If using a blender, purée until smooth then strain through a fine-mesh sieve.
- Return the soup to low heat, taste, and adjust with the remaining kosher salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper as needed. Warm through for 5 minutes.
- Ladle into warm bowls, finish each with a drizzle of good olive oil and torn fresh basil, and serve immediately.