Fiat Lux

For an upcoming dinner party, Scott wanted to start with a dish we really enjoyed when we had it last year at a local restaurant: roasted tomato and fennel soup. Today, we set out to replicate it. February probably isn’t the best time of year to be trying recipes that depend heavily on the freshness and quality of its vegetables, but we’re lucky enough to live three blocks from a fantastic market where you can get top-quality, fresh produce year-round. The results were an unqualified success, and the dish is quite easy to pull off. We’re definitely serving this to our guests next week.

I’m sorry to say that some of the measurements and cooking times given below are my best approximation, not exact. This was a seat of the pants operation done by people who know their way around a kitchen. However, this is a soup, not a soufflé, and as long as you don’t burn anything the end result should turn out just fine. When in doubt, let common sense and your taste buds be your guide.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 lbs heirloom tomatoes
1 bulb fennel (about 3/4 lb)
4 cloves garlic
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Preparation:

First, we cut off the leaves and fronds from the fennel, de-seeded the tomatoes, arranged the cut pieces on foil-covered trays, sprinkled all the pieces with oil and salt, and then roasted the fennel and tomatoes in a 375 degree oven for 50 minutes. The garlic cloves were left in their skins, wrapped in a separate piece of tin foil, and roasted at the same time.

Next, everything (except the garlic skins) went into the blender, along with the chicken stock, and pureed. This puree went through a medium-mesh strainer and heated over low-medium heat for about 45 minutes to reduce. We then put the soup through a second, finer mesh strainer and reduced again for another 45 minutes or so. In went the cream, and simmered again for maybe 30 minutes.

Although straining and reducing the broth down multiple times is a trick we borrowed from Thomas Keller, it felt counterintuitive to me and I was unsure how the result would taste. The pulp sitting in the strainer tasted good, after all, and I was hesitant to toss it out. But after tasting the strained liquid in the pot, I realized that I was wrong. Straining really does clarify and intensify the flavor.

We used no additional salt other than what went onto the veggies during the roasting stage. If you feel the need to add more seasoning, I strongly recommend that you wait until you’re at the final stages to make sure you don’t overintensify the flavors as the soup reduces down.

We were unsure what was going to be better to finish off the soup, so we tried two different toppings at the end: we topped one serving with a little grated Parmigianino Reggiano and diced fennel fronds, and a second with a drizzle of black truffle oil and fennel fronds. Both were good, but the truffle oil was definitely better.

The end product was four small portions of a very intense, flavorful soup. As we’re planning on serving this as an amuse bouche at the beginning of a meal, that’s just fine. However, if you want to make this dish a more central part of the meal, you’re probably going to want to at least double the recipe.

The whole set of photos from today’s kitchen adventure is up on Flickr.