Fire Roasted Tomato & Red Pepper Soup

Spring is a funny season here in Southern Ontario. One day, it’s AC & flip-flops. The next day it’s parkas and reluctantly turning the furnace back on. This weekend has been the latter, but I was craving something smoky from the BBQ. Soup season still clinging on made me find the middle.

What You Need

• 8 Vine Ripened Tomatoes

• 3 Red Bell Peppers cored

• 1 Jalapeño cored

• 2 cans of diced tomatoes drained

• 2 cans of tomato paste

• 2 Large Shallots (or one medium sized yellow onion

• A handful of fresh garlic cloves minced

• 3L (or 3 cartons) of Chicken Broth

• 2 cubes of Knorr Chicken Stock

• 1 cup Heavy Cream

• ½ cup Olive Oil

• 2tsp Dry Oregano

• 1tsp Dry Thyme

• 1tsp Dry Marjoram

• 1tsp White Pepper

• 1/2tsp Powdered Rosemary (I don’t like the “sticks” but you can use em if you want)

• 1/2tsp Dry Tarragon

Fire Up The BBQ

I’m a charcoal only guy, but your gas grill will work fine here too. Set up one side on high heat and the other side “cold.” Sear your tomatoes, peppers and jalapeño onions the heat side until the skin starts to blister and blacken. Then, move them to the “cold” side and close the lid for about 10 minutes. Put them in a bowl and set them aside.

Side note: Veggies take in smoke a hell if a lot more than meat, so don’t overdo it with the wood chips, and find something subtle like pecan or maple. Don’t mesquite these things!

Sweat the Small Stuff

In a large stock pot on medium low, heat up your olive oil and throw in your shallots, garlic and spices. This is crucial and a big mistake a lot of cooks make. You want to open up those flavours slowly and evenly so they max out during the simmer. Don’t toss this stuff into a pot of soup without letting it relax and release all of its flavour first. Low and slow. Don’t burn the garlic!

Once the shallots and garlic are translucent, and your kitchen smells like absolute heaven you’ll wanna add in your tomato paste. This stuff is loaded with sugar, so it burns easily. You want to cook it off a little to get that tinny backnote out of it, but you gotta be fast, and be very careful with the heat. If it starts to stick and get scorched, add a little chicken stock in to free it up.

Bring the Fire to the Party

Add your fire roasted veggies. Use a flat spatula and rough-chop them up while incorporating them into the pot. It’s going to smell like a lot of smoke, but I promise this chills out as we go. Add your chicken stock and bouillon cubes and simmer on low heat until every is dancing together.

Immersion Blenders are your Friend

Blend this mixture as it is down until it’s relatively smooth. Then add your canned diced tomatoes, cover and let simmer on low for about 30 minutes. (If you don’t like chunks of tomato in your soup, you can add the canned ones in and blend them now too, but we like having those little chunks in ours.)

To Cream or not to Cream?

I like to add a little bit of cream to this soup at this point. You don’t have to. Try it first and see if you want it as-is first. I find it really ties the flavours together. I don’t add the same artery-clogging amount I do in my mushroom soup, but just enough to build that little flavour bridge. It’s totally up to you here.

You can see below it’s not a “creamy” soup, but it does do a lot of work in smoothing out the final flavour.

Served with a Garlic Butter Sourdough Grilled Cheese, this soup will change your life! Enjoy!