Chilled Raw Tomato Soup Recipe – The Taste of Summer!

Make this recipe only when tomatoes are local and ripe and achingly good. I mean, when a tomato soup recipe has only a couple of ingredients and takes only 5 minutes of prep time to whip up – that main ingredient had better shine!

It doesn’t really matter what variety of tomato you use for this soup, as long as they are perfectly ripe and were grown within an hour’s drive of your house.

Although this soup takes almost no time to prepare, it does require a little foresight, cause’ on a steamy hot August evening, this soup tastes best when it’s served well chilled - after at least a couple of hours spent in the fridge.

Because this soup calls for grilled bread to serve as the crunchy crouton counterpoint to the refreshing liquid – serve this soup as a starter the next time you grill. By the time you finish eating the soup the steaks will have rested perfectly!

Chilled Raw Tomato Soup with Grilled Bread Croutons

This is a BBQ friendly adaptation of a recipe originally from Michelin starred chef Joel Robuchon.

• 2 pounds of fresh local tomatoes
• 2 Tbls of sour cream
• 3 Tbls of heavy (whipping) cream (if you don’t have either heavy or whipping cream, just use a full 5 Tbls of one or the other)
• 1 large slice of sourdough bread, preferably stale
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Fresh basil
• Salt and pepper

1. Pop the cream, sour cream and the tomatoes in a blender and process until smooth.
2. Transfer this mixture to the fridge to cool for at least a couple of hours. You can season this with salt and pepper now, but it’s better to wait until the soup has reached its serving temperature before seasoning, as temperature can alter our perceptions of sweetness and acidity, for example.
3. Just before serving, rub a large slice of sourdough (or other country style bread) with a little olive oil and BBQ grill it on both sides until it is well toasted and crunchy. If you are not using a BBQ for the rest of your dinner, you can also alternatively toast it under a hot broiler.
4. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste
5. Cut a clove of garlic in half and rub the cut side of the garlic clove over the toasted bread while it is still hot. Roughly chop the bread into crouton sized pieces.
6. Ladle the soup into four bowls and top each bowl some croutons and about 1 Tbls of minced or torn fresh basil.
7. Drizzle in swirls some extra virgin olive oil over each bowl
8. Serve!