other food blogs are so pretty. they have all these pictures, and step by step recipes, and all i do is make dick jokes and talk about how hard i roll. i used to post pictures of food but i haven't in quite a while. so, with the help of my wife, i'm about to drop the hammer on a step by step tutorial on how to make my famous tomato parmesan bisque.
step one---roast yourself some tomatoes, an onion, and some garlic. drizzle that shit with olive oil, salt, and pepper. i actually forgot to take a pic of this stage, but i took a pic of the same thing at work a while ago.
just scale it back for home cooking. three or four nice tomatoes, one onion, two or three cloves of garlic. this is what i had after an hour of roasting. toss it all in your soup pot, like so
next, and this step is important...add one box of POMI strained tomatoes. i discovered POMI a while ago and i refuse to use anything else now. they're straight up italian san marzanos, and they're the best damn packaged tomato product on the planet. they're kinda expensive compared to hunts or store brand, but they're seriously worth it.
now, make some chicken stock. yeah, you could buy a carton, but the jars of chicken base are cheaper per gallon, and you can oomph it up or cut it back depending on your personal tastes. also, drink some beers at this point, and crank the tunes.
next up...the secret weapon. CALDO DE TOMATE. find it in the mexi aisle of your local food mart. it's powdered tomato stock, and it's amazing...a tablespoon of this will make nearly any recipe better, it adds a nice depth and is a great base veggie flavor to start soups or stocks or gravys. one tablespoon to make my tomatoes more tomato-y.
ok, add all that to your pot and bring to a simmer. while that's happening...
get your heavy cream on. use the entire container. i guess you could use regular milk, but i'd lose respect for you. while your cream is coming to a boil...
chop your ass some basil. don't worry about getting it chopped down that fine, we'll blend it up later. now add that basil, son!!
yeah, yeah...that's good stuff. your kitchen should smell friggin awesome right now.
mine sure did. now get your salt and pepper on. don't be shy. le sal...
and le pep...
ok, now we're just waiting for the cream to come to a boil. feel free to take this time to bust some sweet air guitar moves while listening to social distortion real loud.
ok, this is an important lesson...heavy cream will boil in two stages. little bubbles...
to big bubbles. i always call it "boiling up and boiling down". when the bubbles get big and you're in danger or making a terrible mess...
cut back the heat and grate a shitload of fresh parm into the cream. we melt the cheese into the cream because it incorperates a lot better than if we tried to add it to the stock. romano or asiago will also do just fine here. asiago smells like farts but it tastes pretty awesome. take note of the motion blur caused by the fierceness with which i grate cheese.
now grab your trusty stick blender (you do have a trusty stick blender, right? if you don't, you're dead to me.) and blitz your tomatoes and stock and stuff up real good like
then, while still blending, add your parmesan cream
by now your soup should have turned a kickass shade of orange, and the basil will be all chopped to bits and everything should be as smooth as sam jackson. feel free to keep the blender in there for a while...the longer you blend, the smoother your soup.
boom. done. now keep that shit on a simmer and we move on to the next step.
wait...next step? didn't i just say that we're done? well, yeah, but you can't really have tomato soup without some kick ass grilled cheese sammies, right? i had some hot dog buns i needed to use from earlier in the week when i made chicago dogs, so they became the vehicle of choice. rocked some provolone, some leftover salami, and the rest of the basil. if you used all the basil in the soup...well...whoops.
i know a lot of people butter the outside of the bread when making grilled cheeses, but...eff that. i just butter up my pan real good.
add your sammies and give them two or three minutes on medium heat. flip when they're crispy and delicious looking.
same deal for side two. now pull them out, slice on the bias so they're easy to dip, and badda boom.
you're welcome.
step one---roast yourself some tomatoes, an onion, and some garlic. drizzle that shit with olive oil, salt, and pepper. i actually forgot to take a pic of this stage, but i took a pic of the same thing at work a while ago.
next up...the secret weapon. CALDO DE TOMATE. find it in the mexi aisle of your local food mart. it's powdered tomato stock, and it's amazing...a tablespoon of this will make nearly any recipe better, it adds a nice depth and is a great base veggie flavor to start soups or stocks or gravys. one tablespoon to make my tomatoes more tomato-y.
wait...next step? didn't i just say that we're done? well, yeah, but you can't really have tomato soup without some kick ass grilled cheese sammies, right? i had some hot dog buns i needed to use from earlier in the week when i made chicago dogs, so they became the vehicle of choice. rocked some provolone, some leftover salami, and the rest of the basil. if you used all the basil in the soup...well...whoops.
