A few weeks ago La Voz de Almería published the recipe for our chilled Raf tomato soup in its special supplement for Almería Tomato Week. Some of our social media followers asked us for it, so here it is on our blog.
This soup is reminiscent of gazpacho, except that the vegetables are cooked rather than raw. The recipe aims to get the most out of one of the most interesting vegetables grown in Almería’s greenhouses: the Raf tomato.
Raf is a tomato with a unique, very sweet flavour and a crunchy texture when it is at its best. This soup is perfect for when your Raf tomatoes have ripened too much and lost that crunch everyone loves when they are eaten raw.
Ingredients for the chilled Raf tomato soup
- 1 kg ripe Raf tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1 celery stick
- ½ leek
- 1 roasted red pepper
- 1 cucumber
- 1 tablespoon oregano
- 2 basil leaves
- Salt and pepper
If you don’t have a roasted pepper ready, roast one in an oven preheated to 180 °C for about 40 minutes. Let it cool, then remove the skin and seeds.
Wash and chop the tomatoes. Wash the vegetables and chop them into small pieces.
In a saucepan with oil, lightly brown all the vegetables except the pepper. Then add the tomato, season and cook for 12 minutes.
When it is done, add the roasted pepper and blend everything in a food processor or with a hand blender. Let it cool to room temperature and then put the soup in the fridge. Always serve cold.
You can garnish the soup with shavings of good ham, confit cherry tomatoes or fish roe.
Remember that Raf is a winter tomato, available roughly from November to May. The rest of the year you can use another good tomato, but the result isn’t the same.
