Asian Tomato Soup

6.25.10

Some of you may notice something new on this blog. No..I'm still the same person with a smiley face. "Hint hint" it's at the bottom of the post and also on the right sidebars. Yep yep,  I Just Love My Apron takes on a new challenge on Facebook. After several weeks of thinking and weighing the options, I've decided make a "go" for this task last Tuesday. I'm hoping we can interact more! If you have a Facebook page, feel free to drop me a line and I will follow.

Okay, back to the post. Is this the first soup recipe I posted in a very long time? Hmm..this soup is my favorite soup recipe from my mom. She made this quite often when I was a kid. She served this soup along with deep fried tofu..yummm. I love to eat it with steamed rice. Sometimes I just dump rice in the bowl and slurp through it....burp..

I don't know if this is a Thai or Vietnamese or a little bit of both cuisines. So, I label it "Asian". As you may know I was born in Thailand but my ethnicity is Vietnamese. My whole family tree is Vietnamese but what a shame I haven't had a chance to visit Vietnam..boo! My parents speak Vietnamese to each other but Thai to me and my sisters. Therefore, I could pick up a little bit of the language by listening. I sometimes dream in Thai with people speaking Vietnamese in the background, but screaming out in English. How weird? I think my brain is messed up.

This soup is super easy to make, yet flavorful. My grandma made a similar version of this. It's thicker. Dill and fish were added. She ate it with shredded lettuce. You can add any kind of meat or tofu if you wish, and tweak it with vegetable stock for a vegetarian soup.

For me, I would rather have it plain without meat and get the flavor from the chicken stock. It's not a smooth silky soup as you may like, but the chunks of tomato and sweetness of it could win you over. I used Roma tomatoes because they have more meat and less seeds.

Cut tomatoes to quarter-wise

Asian Tomato Soup

Yield: 2

Ingredients:

4 Roma tomatoes, cut quarter-wise

1 medium shallot, thinly sliced

1 tbsp grapeseed oil

1.5 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock

2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 tsp sugar

2 stems scallions, cut to 1 inch and keep both white and green part

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

1/2 tbsp fried red onion for garnish

Directions:

• Heat up a medium sauce pan. When it's hot, add oil
• Add shallots; pan fry it and stir well.
• When shallots are brown (if using meat you can add it at this step), then add tomatoes.
• Season with salt, pepper, and sugar
• Stir occasionally. Let the tomatoes cook until they are melted about 20 mins with medium heat
• Use a wooden spoon to break it apart. You will see tomato sauce and chunks at this step.
• Add stock and bring the soup to a boil. Add salt and sugar if necessary. Simmer with a lid on for 10 more mins
• Stir well. Turn off the heat. Add chopped scallions and cilantro.
• Remove from stove and divide into 2 bowls
• Sprinkle with fried onions and cilantro

That's what you will get before adding stock

I put too much fried onion on this one..yike!