One of my favorite Dutch food shows is called: ‘Over de kook“.

It’s a show, or better yet, a contest between five amateur chefs battling it out in a restaurant kitchen using their favorite recipes. It’s a good watch.

One of the recipes they aired really caught my eye: a basic roasted tomato soup, full of lovely vegetables, garnished with herbed goat cheese.

What was so special about it? They actually added potatoes to the soup. Something I’ve never added to my tomato soup before. The thought never even occurred to me, so I had to try it!

What do you know. It turned out to be the perfect consistency. It’s a wintery and rich soup that is chockfull of flavor.

Ingredients:

1 pound plum tomatoes (I’m adding 2 pounds next time)
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 celery stalks
2 large potatoes
1 large leek (white part only)
2 small or 1 medium carrot
8 cups water
3 vegetable bouillon cubes
1 can tomato paste (3 oz)
handful of fresh basil
handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
basil oil
salt & pepper

Goat Cheese Topping:

7 oz soft goat cheese
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
freshly cracked black pepper

Directions:

Note: The recipe called for 1 pound tomatoes. I’ll be using two pounds next time. I want a more intense tomato flavor.
 

Wash and dry the tomatoes. Cut them in four (unless yours are smaller, cut those in half), put them in a roasting tray (skin side down) and drizzle some basil oil over them.

Season them with a good pinch of kosher salt and coarsely cracked black pepper.

 
Roast the tomatoes for 35 to 45 minutes in a preheated oven at 400˚F (200˚C). You can continue to chop your ingredients in the mean time and sauté the vegetables.
 

Peel and cut the carrot in coarse pieces. Do the same with the onion. Might replace the carrot with pumpkin next time.

Wash the leek and coarsely chop only the white part.

Chop up the celery stalks. Chop chop chop. Why am I not using my food processor here?

The garlic. Oh yes, the garlic.

Grate the garlic and peel and coarsely chop the potatoes. Keep them in water until you use them to prevent discoloring.

Heat 2 tbsp butter and sauté the vegetables for a minute or five. Low heat and continue to stir because they should not brown!

After about 5 minutes the onions will go slightly translucent. Add the garlic and leek and cook for another 3 minutes.

Pour in the water.

Your roasted tomatoes will be done by now.

Add the tomato paste, bouillon cubes, potatoes and roasted tomatoes.

 
Over here you can buy MSG free bouillon cubes in health food stores. Not sure about the rest of the world so you’re on your own.
 

Also make sure to add the tomato drippings. Gotta have that sweet roasted tomato juice infused with basil oil in your soup! Yes, you do.

Stir in the fresh herbs and bring your soup to a boil. I like a heavy basil flavor, but use as much or as little as you like.

Simmer the soup for 30 minutes.

 
This is where the recipe got a bit weird for me. It said: “remove the herbs and add them to the goat cheese”. Come again? Why would I want to remove the herbs? Nuh uh. Not going there. The herbs stay *in* the soup.
 

Use a blender or immersion blender to puree the soup and sieve it, to remove the tomato seeds.

 
Not sure I’ll sieve it next time either. I don’t really fret over a few tomato seeds.
 

Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.

Mix the goat cheese with the Italian seasoning, lemon juice and pepper. I used a fork.

Note:

The original recipe said to remove the herbs from the soup, add them to the goat cheese along with the lemon juice and blitz using a food processor. Then add a spoonful of the goat cheese to each soup bowl.

The guests, however, said that the goat cheese overpowered the soup. So in stead I just crumbled a bit of goat cheese on top of each bowl and it was perfect.
 

 
Serve with lightly buttered crusty, dark bread.

 
Don’t like goat cheese? I’m happy to tell you that a nice dollop of sour cream makes this soup pretty much irresistible as well. Hey, a girl’s gotta test her own recipes, right?