A really nice hardy meal, especially in the colder months. Goes great with grilled cheese. Can be easily kept in the fridge or freezer to be consumed later. Makes 6-8 bowls.
Ingredients
- 1 large onion
- 1 fennel bulb (you could skip this, or replace it with another onion) 1
- 1 stick (4 oz, 113g) butter (you could use as little as 1/4 of that) 2
- pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon celery seeds (very optional)
- 1/4 cup flour (30g)
- 2 28 oz (800g) cans of tomatoes (quality matters a lot, I use Mutti) 3
- 1 cup (237mL) white wine (very optional) 4
- salt (to taste)
- water
- sugar (if the tomatoes aren’t sweet enough)
- tomato paste (if the tomatoes aren’t tomatoey enough)
- optional: a splash of olive oil, a pinch of chili flakes and a garlic clove for the chili oil garnish
- Fennel is one of the unique twists, so try to use it here. ↩︎
- Everyone knows butter always makes things tastier. ↩︎
- Italian tomatoes are always the best. ↩︎
- Wine can be replaced with more water or stock. ↩︎
Directions
- Roughly chop the onion and the fennel bulb (reserving the stalks and fronds to use later for garnish).
- Melt the butter in a big pot over medium heat and cook the onion and fennel in there for a few minutes until it starts to soften.
- Grind in some pepper and put in the celery seeds. Stir in the flour, and cook it for a couple minutes.
- Before anything browns, dump in the tomatoes. If the tomatoes are whole, you can accelerate their cooking by squishing them up.
- Stir in the wine, if you’re using it. Simmer for at least a half hour, stirring and scraping occasionally to keep anything from burning on the bottom.
- Meanwhile, for the chili oil garnish, put maybe 1/4 cup (60mL) of olive oil in a small pan and fill it with chili flakes. Drop in the garlic clove and heat it until the garlic just starts to sizzle. Leave it on low heat to infuse while the soup cooks.
- When the soup is ready, puree it (immersion blender works great here) and then add salt and water to taste — you will probably need a lot of both. You can puree the soup as little or as much as you would like. I prefer my soup a little chunkier, but blend for longer to get rid of the chunks.
- Consider the addition of sugar or tomato paste to enhance the flavor, or maybe some vinegar if you didn’t use the white wine. If you want it super smooth, use a stiff spoon to grind the soup through a sieve, discarding the vegetable fibers.
- Serve the soup with a drizzle of chili oil on top and maybe some of the reserved fennel fronds.
- Enjoy! Consider serving the classic way, alongside a grilled cheese sandwich.
