CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP

CREAMY TOMATO SOUP SHOULD TASTE LIKE sweet, ripe tomatoes and have a rich red color. The cream should tame the acidity but not obliterate it. The soup should also be extremely smooth.

We knew that ripe August tomatoes would make excellent soup, but this recipe is really too heavy for summertime. It's best served at the holidays or for lunch on a cold winter's day, when only out-of-season tomatoes are available. We made five different tomato soup recipes using out-of-season fresh tomatoes, and the results were ghastly. All the soups were watery and tasted like cream and vegetables (onions, leeks, whatever was added to the base). The tomato flavor was so faint that the color was the only clue that the soups contained tomatoes.

Our next step was to test canned tomatoes. From past results, we knew that canned whole tomatoes packed in juice (not puree) have the freshest tomato flavor. That's because puree is a concentrate requiring higher and longer cooking times than simple canned tomatoes, whole or diced. We tried our favorite canned whole tomatoes (Muir Glen has been a consistent winner in our blind taste tests), and the results were better but not great. The soup needed more tomato flavor.

We wondered how we could get more flavor from canned tomatoes. We decided to trying broiling, which had worked well in soups made with corn and asparagus. The difference was enormous. The soup tasted as if it had been made with the finest, ripest summer tomatoes.

Admittedly, broiling canned tomatoes can be tricky. We had trouble with burning in some spots on the tray. We figured that roasting in a hot oven would deliver similar results without the risk of scorching. After several tests, we concluded that roasting at 450 degrees gave us excellent flavor without any scorching. Roasting both intensified the flavor of the canned tomatoes and mellowed their acidity.

With the all-important tomato element in place, we wondered if we could intensify the flavor even further with tomato paste or sun-dried tomatoes. Sun-dried tomatoes added a bit more tomato flavor, but we felt the difference was not worth the bother of rehydrating the dried tomatoes in boiling water. The paste brought another level of tomato intensity to the soup and fortified the color. Paste is easy to add to the soup, so we have included some in our recipe.