# Smoked tomato and red pepper soup



## db28472 (Apr 5, 2016)

Been wanting to make this for a while.  Looked at about 10 recipes to come up with this.
Ingredients:
2 large red peppers
8-10 medium tomatoes (3-3 1/2 lbs)
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
Large yellow onion (can use Vidalia and skip 1/8 tsp sugar)
2cloves garlic
1Tbs tomato paste
1Tbs fresh basil thinly sliced
2 pints vegetable broth
1 cup water
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp regular paprika
1/8 tsp sugar
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme (I used Zatar, a roasted middle eastern thyme)
1bay leaf
1Tbs Arborio rice
Salt/pepper to taste
2Tbs butter
Olive oil

Smoking:
1. In small foil container, brush whole red peppers with olive oil
2. Cut each tomato into fourths, remove core, drizzle with olive oil
3. Put tomatoes, whole carrots, whole celery stalk in large foil pan
4. 4 oz. mesquite, smoke @250 for 2.5 hours

Soup:
1. Remove the skin and seeds from tomatoes, red peppers.  Dice all vegetables keeping the juices as much as possible.
2. In stock pot, melt butter. Cook diced opinion and thinly diced garlic to lucency.  Add tomato paste.
3. Add smoked vegetables and vegetable broth.  Stir in dry spices.  Add rice and water.
4. Simmer 30 minutes, remove bay leaf.
5. Using immersion blender, purée. (May strain and then purée solids, putting them 
back in)
6.  Serve hot or cold, garnish with Basil leaf













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## SmokinAl (Apr 5, 2016)

It certainly looks delicious!

How did it taste?

Would you change anything in the recipe?

Al


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## db28472 (Apr 5, 2016)

Thanks for looking!  I really enjoyed this.  It is a bit thick, so I changed the recipe to add a bit more water (when I made it I only added 1/2 cup).  I think chicken broth would be good too, but I thought I would stick with the vegetable theme.  It could use more heat too, but that is subject to taste.  I added some Frank's hot sauce to my serving.  The smoke was not too heavy, even for mesquite. More aromatic than actual smoke taste, if that makes sense.  I didn't think the veges would take on too much smoke, which is why I used mesquite. The combo of the tomato and red pepper really worked.  Think V-8 rather than just tomato juice.  I could see this being a nice gazpacho type soup too, especially with a bit less water.  Maybe a dollop of sour cream or yogurt on top.


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