Gordon Ramsay’s tomato basil soup comes from his 2003 book, Gordon Ramsay’s Secrets, where plum tomatoes roast with onion, garlic, thyme and basil before they’re blended and sieved. There’s no cream at all. It takes about 60 minutes with ready-made stock and serves 4 as a first course.
“A superlative fresh tomato soup is one of the hallmarks of a good cook,” he writes. To boost the flavor, he adds hickory-smoked sun-dried cherry tomatoes, and they give this soup its depth.
To finish, he fries little clusters of cherry tomatoes on the vine and sets them on top with their pan juices and small basil leaves.
Gordon Ramsay’s Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup
Course: SoupsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4
15
minutes45
275
kcalA smooth Gordon Ramsay tomato basil soup with no cream, flavored with smoked sun-dried tomatoes and topped with pan-fried vine tomatoes.
Ingredients
- For the soup:
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) olive oil
2¼ pounds (1 kg) plum (Roma) tomatoes, halved
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 fat garlic cloves, halved
a small handful of thyme sprigs
1 teaspoon superfine sugar (caster sugar)
a small handful of basil sprigs
4¼ cups (1 liter) chicken stock or vegetable stock
3 smoked sun-dried cherry tomatoes in oil, drained
or 2 semi-soft sun-dried tomatoes, snipped, and 1 tablespoon barbecue sauce
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the garnish:
2 tablespoons olive oil
7 to 10 ounces (200 to 300 g) baby cherry tomatoes on the vine
small basil leaves
Directions
- Heat: Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Pour the oil into a large roasting pan that holds the tomatoes in one layer and heat it in the oven for about 5 minutes, until almost smoking.
- Roast: Carefully tip in the tomatoes, onion and garlic and toss to coat in the hot oil. Scatter over the thyme, sprinkle with the sugar and season generously with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, until soft and caramelized at the edges, stirring once or twice and adding the basil for the last 5 minutes.
- Simmer: Tip everything into a large saucepan, discarding any woody thyme stalks. Bring the stock to a boil in another pan and pour it over the tomatoes. Bring back to a boil, add the smoked tomatoes (or the sun-dried tomatoes and barbecue sauce) and cook for 5 minutes.
- Blend: Strain the stock into a bowl, keeping the tomatoes. Blend the tomatoes in batches, gradually adding the stock back in, until smooth. Press the soup through a sieve into a clean pan with the back of a ladle, then taste and season.
- Garnish: Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Snip the vine tomatoes into 4 clusters and fry them on the vine for about a minute, until the skins just start to split.
- Serve: Reheat the soup if needed, since it’s best warm rather than piping hot. Pour it into warm bowls, top with the pan-roasted vine tomatoes, drizzle their pan juices around and scatter with basil leaves.
Notes
- Hickory-smoked sun-dried tomatoes are sold online and at some delis. His swap is semi-soft sun-dried tomatoes with barbecue sauce, which brings the smoky note.
- Use a blender rather than a food processor for the smoothest texture, his tip from the book. Fill it no more than half full with the hot soup and vent the lid.
- Out of season, pick the ripest plum tomatoes you can find, since he says flavorful tomatoes are essential.
- With store-bought stock, choose low-sodium, as the tomatoes are seasoned generously before roasting.
- For a vegetarian soup, use vegetable stock. If you use the swap, check the barbecue sauce, since many contain Worcestershire sauce, which is made with anchovies.
FAQs
How is it different from his roasted tomato soup with pesto?
That one has cream and cayenne, while this one has none and gets its flavor from basil, thyme and smoked sun-dried tomatoes. His roasted tomato soup from Ultimate Home Cooking is also topped with a sun-dried tomato pesto, where this one is sieved smooth and finished with vine tomatoes.
Which stock does he use?
Ready-made stock works, though he uses his own light chicken stock or his vegetable nage from the same book. The nage is the stock he uses for vegetarian dishes and light vegetable soups, and it makes about 6 cups (1.5 liters).
Put 3 onions, 1 leek, 2 celery ribs and 6 carrots, all chopped, in a pot with 8½ cups (2 liters) cold water. Add a halved head of garlic, a chopped lemon, ½ teaspoon each of white and pink peppercorns, a bay leaf and 4 star anise, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Off the heat, add a tied bunch of tarragon, basil, cilantro, thyme, parsley and chervil with a generous ¾ cup (200 ml) dry white wine. Let it cool, then infuse it in the fridge for about 24 hours before you strain it.
Can I make it ahead?
Yes, the soup keeps for 3 days in the fridge and freezes well for up to 3 months.
Bring leftovers back to a boil, then let the soup stand for a few minutes so it’s warm when you serve it. Fry the vine tomatoes just before serving.
Zaytouna Studio Team is the kitchen team behind Chef Ramsay Recipes. We cook Gordon Ramsay’s recipes from his cookbooks and videos in a home kitchen and write them up for yours, with US and metric measurements.