The Recipe: Caramelized Cream of Tomato Soup

I've been playing around a lot recently with the idea of roasting or frying things in heavy cream. Heavy cream is essentially all the same constituent parts as regular butter, just in different ratios. For a given amount of butterfat, cream has a much higher ratio of water and milk solids (proteins like casein and sugars like lactose). So once that water is cooked out of it, you wind up with pure butterfat and lots and lots of milk solids, which gives caramelized cream a really rich, nutty, sweet flavor.

If you haven't tried heating cream in a skillet until it starts to bubble and brown then fry an egg in that caramelized cream, you are missing out!

In this recipe I try and take advantage of those nice browning qualities by using cream to coat seasoned /tomatoes and onions that I roast in a Dutch oven until browned. I then puree it in the same dutch oven with another splash of fresh cream and some stock. It makes for an easy one-pot, mostly hands-off soup.

I discuss this recipe as well as Deb Perelman's new tomato soup recipe in the tomato soup episode of our podcast, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb.

Anyhow, here is that recipe.

Caramelized Cream of Tomato Soup 

Makes about 2 quarts

Active time: 5 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

24 ounces (700g) roma or cherry tomatoes, split into quarters

1 medium yellow onion, about 8 ounces (225g), peeled and cut into ½-inch slices

4 cloves garlic, trimmed and smashed

1 tablespoon (12g) sugar

1 cup (240ml) heavy cream, divided

4 tablespoons (60g) tomato paste

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Pinch red pepper flakes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups (480ml) water or stock (either chicken or vegetable is fine)

Red wine or sherry vinegar to taste

• Adjust an oven rack to the lower middle position and preheat the oven to 425°F. Use convection if you have it. Combine the tomatoes, onions, garlic, sugar, 1/2 cup of the cream, tomato paste, oregano, pepper flakes, a big pinch of salt, and a few grinds of black pepper in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Stir until the vegetables are coated in a tomato paste/cream mixture.

• Transfer the pot to the oven and cook, uncovered, until the mixture starts to caramelize and brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. Stir the mixture thoroughly and continue cooking until deeply caramelized and charred in spots, about 40 minutes total. (Don’t stir too frequently–the goal is to have some unevenness in cooking with a few very darkly charred spots and other lighter areas).

• Remove the pan from the oven and add the remaining cream and stock. Blend the mixture until smooth with a hand blender or a standing blender. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, and vinegar, adding the vinegar a teaspoon at a time until the soup tastes bright. Serve. I like to drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper once it's in the bowl.