soup or sauce, or sauce or soup, part II: pappa al pomodoro

Last time, ragazzi, we took a recipe for a soup, and turned it into a sauce.  This time, we're going the other way, and we turn sauce, to soup.

Although there is a debate as to whether or not this is a soup.  You make it and you decide.

Pappa al pomodoro  is an Italian classic, born out of a situation of abundance, and poverty.  And Annalena shall try to explain what she means by that.

If you are growing your own food, you come to a situation where something is coming in, in such quantities, you may feel rich.  And that is what happens with tomatoes, carini.  But you may have very little else: olive oil, garlic, basil, stale bread.  And that is what you need for this.  

You can leave the bread out if you are making sauce, but for heaven's sake do it the full way one time.  But do know that there are about 3 million recipes for this out there.

Here is what Annalena's looked like when she was done:

Now if that looks like something you wanna eat, let's get started.  You need a large onion - one which will yield about two cups of  chopped onion when you're done, and about six cloves of garlic.  Next, you need a half cup of good quality olive oil, and you need bread.  Annalena deliberately staled some country white bread for this.  Her original recipe called for breadcrumbs.

That is not going to happen.    You also need a big bunch of basil, and most significantly, a food mill.  You might be able to leave out the food mill, but try it.

Ok, here we go.  Chop up the onion, and then peel and chop the garlic.  Keep them separate.  Use the RIPEST tomatoes you can get.  If you go to the farmers market late in the day, you can frequently get exactly the tomatoes you want:  the soft ones that they don't want to take home with them.  You're going to need 2 pounds for this recipe, but if you ask the farmer for a deal on 2 pounds of tomatoes, Annalena shall smite you.  Buy ten and make sauce.  Or make this over and over again.

Cut the cores out of the tomatoes.  And then cut them up roughly.  They get separated as well.  Now, take that bunch of basil and pull the leaves off of the stems.  The stems are more important to this recipe than the leaves, and you wanted to make pesto anyway, didn't you?

Put the half cup of olive oil in a pan or pot at medium heat, and add the onions.  Let them cook for a while, and when the begin to soften, add the garlic, and cook them together for about three minutes.  Pull out about half a cup of the solids.Then add the tomatoes, and the stems from the basil.  Lower your heat and let this all cook together, stirring occasionally for fifteen minutes.  Add salt along the way.  As this cooks you will get tomato sauce with a "tang" of basil to it   You can't however, use the basil stems in  your sauce, so if you're stopping at sauce, pull the stems out.

But if you're making soup, pull out that food mill.  Put the stuff through the coarse one, and push, push PUSH. You'l get about three cups of what will be essentially the purest tomato juice you will ever get.

Now, remember that bread?  Ok, cut the crusts away and toast them later for crumbs.  Use the soft part, and break it into little tiny bits.  If you have kids, or grandkids, they will love doing this.  Annalena thinks.  You want about 2.5 cups of bead bits.  Put the juice back into the pot or pan, and over low heat, stirring all the way, add the bread bits.  Then turn off the heat, and let the thing sit for ten minutes.

You've got pappa al pomodoro.  And you've got good eating, as you participate in a time honored tradition. Garnish the soup with a little bit of basil leaves.  Don't eat this hot.  Eat it at room temperature (the way Annalena likes it), or cold.  But make it, and eat it. You'll be glad you did.