Time for a recipe... Tomato & Bread soup

It's time for another recipe and I'd like to share one of my favorite soups with you.

This Tomato & Bread soup (Pappa al pomodoro in Italian... it's an Italian/Tuscan dish!) is good for a lazy sunday on the couch but also a perfect special dish during a homecooked dinner with friends. The great thing is, you can use up all your 'old' bread that's left over, so you're also thinking yield management ;)

The reason I love this soup is because it can fill you up, no sugar is used, the tastes of the different ingredients mix up so wel, you can make it all organic, it's veggie (Personally I'm an occasional veggie.. once or twice a week) and it makes you look like a great chef .. ;)



So, no long talks this time, here's my recipe. It's based on different recipes from Jamie Oliver, Amber Albarda and some recipe websites.



What do you need?
- 500 grams cherry tomatoes. (fresh and deep red, prefferably bio/organic)
- 3 cloves of garlic - cut into slices
- a large bunch of fresh basil (chop the stalks and tear up the leaves - keep seperately)
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tins of peeled tomatoes (prefferably the bio/organic)
- Sea salt and Pepper
- One red pepper (throw the seeds out)
- Some freshly grounded Pecorino
- 2 large handfulls of bread ( I love using sourdough bread )

What to do?

Prick the cherry tomatoes and toss them with one sliced clove of garlic and a quarter of the basil leaves. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put them in a roasting tray or baking dish and cook in the oven at 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 for about 20 minutes. Make sure the tomatoes are not on top of the other but all seperated. The reason for doing this is so that their flavour becomes intense and concentrated.

Heat some olive oil in a large pot and add the remaining garlic and the basil stalks. Stir around and gently fry for a minute until softened. Add your tinned tomatoes, then fill the tin with water and add that. Break the tomatoes up with a spoon or a fork, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
Tear the bread up into pieces and add them to the pan. Mix well and season to taste. Tear in the basil leaves and let the soup sit on a low heat for 10 minutes. By this time your roasted tomatoes will be done, with juice bursting out of their skins, so remove them from the tray, remembering to scrape all the lovely sticky bits from the bottom. Pour them into the soup with all the juices, basil and oil from the tray.
Give the soup a good stir – you're looking to achieve a thick, silky, porridgey texture, so feel free to adjust it with a little water. Then remove it from the heat and add 6 or 7 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and some fresh red pepper.


Divide between your bowls and serve with a little extra basil torn over the top if you like. The most important thing with this soup is that you have a wonderfully intense sweet tomato basil flavour. Add some freshly grounded Pecorino in the end.

You can easily keep this soup in the refridgerator after it cooled down. It might even be better the next day.


All I'd like to add; Enjoy!!!