All my life I've been extremely annoyed with croutons. To me they were obstacles in my salad that were hard, tasteless, and couldn't be picked up with a fork. This changed one day when I had the biggest, fluffiest crouton of my life. I was at a restaurant and ordered the caesar salad, when it came out it was topped with 3 giant cubes of sourdough bread that had been toasted to a golden brown perfection on each side. It was like bread heaven, and instead of being hard little obstacles they we crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside...those were a crouton I was ok with. So anyway, when I was thinking of what to make on this dreary winter day, I though of those comforting croutons and knew I had to try and recreate them. Instead of salad I thought they would be nice to top a warm soup. I thought about how I could create a decent creamy tomato soup without the produce of summer and this is what I came up with. Canned crushed tomatoes, enhanced with butter, onions, and garlic, some fresh rosemary and parmesan cheese. It turned out pretty good and really hearty for a cold winters day.
Winter Tomato Soup
-serves 4-
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small yellow onion
2 cloves garlic; minced
1 sprig rosemary
2 inches of parmesan cheese rind
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
28oz can crushed or pureed tomatoes
salt and pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
To start, chop up your onion to a fine dice and melt the butter and olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Let the onion sweat in the butter and olive oil for about 5 minutes and then add the minced garlic and rosemary sprig. Sauté for a few minutes more and then add your tomatoes and chicken broth, as well as the cheese rind. Stir well and let come to a simmer for at least 10 minutes, remove the rosemary. At this point, if you like, you can blend the soup in a blender or with an emersion blender to make extra smooth, just remember to remove the cheese rind. If small pieces of onion don't bother you, you can serve as is. Add salt and pepper to taste and, if you used a blender, pour back in the pot until ready to serve. Right before serving, turn off the heat and stir in the half cup cream. This will give it a silky decadent texture, and you're ready to serve with parmesan cheese and a large crouton on top!
Giant Croutons
1 baguette
2-4 tablespoons of butter
sea salt
fresh cracked pepper
Slice your baguette into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces and heat a skillet to medium high heat with a good amount of butter. Place baguette pieces in hot pan and fry till golden brown on both sides. Sprinkle the top with coarse sea salt and black pepper and serve over your soup. **If you fry them in batches, be sure to add more butter each time so they get a good golden crust!