Seasonal Ontario Food

Tomatoes! Tomatoes! Tomatoes! We're inundated with them, about which we are mostly very pleased. The yellow tomatoes were a mixture of Banana Legs and Taxi, the reds were Stupice and the green tomatoes were Green Zebra. Green Zebra is probably the most common green (when ripe) tomato, but I suspect you can use whatever yellow or red tomatoes you can find to good effect.

This is a rather glamourous soup with a few stages to it, but not difficult. You could cook the yellow soup base in advance and just finish it before serving to make it even easier. I meant to shred a little basil into the green tomato garnish but I forgot. You could do it, though.

4 - 6 servings


Cook the Carrot:
3/4 cup diced carrot (1 small)
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 cups water

Peel and dice the carrot, and cook it with the bay leaves in the water until just tender. Keep the cooking water.

Sauté the vegetables:
1 cup diced yellow zucchini (1 small)
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/3 cup diced shallot (2-3 medium)
1 tablespoon sunflower seed or olive oil

Prepare the vegetables and sauté them in the oil until soft and slightly browned.

Finish the Soup:
4 cups peeled, diced yellow tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons verjus
OR 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sherry (optional)

2 to 3 cups peeled, diced red tomatoes
1 cup peeled, diced green tomatoes

When the sautéd vegetables are ready, add the diced yellow tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes, until they are quite soft.

Lift the carrots from their cooking water with a slotted spoon, and put them in a food processor or blender. Add the yellow tomato mixture, purée until very smooth, then remove the soup to a pot. Use the water from cooking the carrots to swish out the food processor or blender, having of course discarded the bay leaves. Add this water to the soup.

Add the diced red tomatoes to the soup and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring carefully to keep the red tomatoes as intact as possible. Serve garnished with the raw green tomatoes. We all agreed a dollop of sour cream or yogurt would also go well.




Last year at this time I made Corn Pudding.