Cream of Tomato Soup ( Indian style)

While growing up,  I really did not care for soup(s). My mom tried making few times until she kinda gave up on me liking it. Then came a stage in my late teens when I started having it at restaurants since everyone else ordered it at the table and felt it was a polite thing to do. I tried few varieties before settling at Tomato soup since I found that I liked it the best – and that too only at restaurants.  I am not sure if it was the creaminess or the bread croutons on top that appealed to me.

Once the teen stage vanished, so did the constant itch to please everyone and the soup habit eventually disappeared until it came back full force many years later after I had my little baby. You find yourself obsessing over things that never mattered before when you have kids, don’t you think? I wanted to maximize my little one’s consumption of vegetables and suddenly soup seemed to be the perfect solution. It helped that he seemed to like it and my husband welcomed this new “soup making” me. I don’t know if it was the change in hormones from pregnancy or my own maturity in tastes, suddenly, I started liking soups.

From there started my journey into this delicious world of soup making. To me, soup is like an orchestra of flavors where each ingredient together create symphony in your palate. If cooked correctly (without overcooking/or watering down), you find it also provides cartload of nutrition and an intense depth of flavor with great piquancy. I can bet my cooking appliances (!) on the fact that you will fall in love with soup once more (or first time) when you make it using OPOS method. (What is OPOS?).

When you cook using this technique, you will find that there is hardly any need to add color, richness and/or thickness since the deep flavor of the ingredients shine by themselves and cooking them in their own juices provide all the texture you could possibly need. Of course, you can still add those, but you will find that you would need them way less than what you would normally add while cooking in regular method. Try it on your own and let me know what you think.

I personally do not feel the need to add any cream to this soup since its perfection just as it is. But go ahead with some cream. I have used about 2 tbsp cream just to decorate the soup for the 4 of us. Add as per your taste. Of course you can instead top it with Bread croutons. This soup works great as an appetizer or as a main meal along with grilled cheese. We enjoy it for lunch with Grilled Cheese Naanwich!

For the Base
1-1/2 tbsp oil
1-1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 bay leaf
1 medium Onion, chopped into small chunks
1/3 cup Celery, chopped
4-5 cloves of Garlic
2.2 lbs (1 kilo/abt 10 medium sized) red ripe Tomatoes, chopped – see Tips
3-4 tbsp Cream or as needed
Salt and Pepper to taste

Optional Additions for Sweetness/Texture Can add any one, in combination or all
1 small-medium Carrot, chopped
1 small Red Bell Pepper
1/4 cup Beetroot, grated (or use 1-2 tbsp Beetroot Powder)
1/4 cup Sweet Potato, peeled and chopped into small chunks

Traditional Restaurant thickeners/additions
1 tbsp Rice flour/Corn flour
1-2 tsp Sugar to balance sourness

1. Tomatoes: Needless to say, fresh ripe peak of season tomatoes provide the best flavor and color to this soup. But if that’s not the case, the sourness and color can be easily adjusted using additional few tbsp of tomato paste (to provide depth in flavor). You can use tomato powder instead. The amount for the paste/powder will depend on the quality of your tomatoes. Also, if not planning to use other vegetables that provide sweetness naturally, I would suggest adding some dried fruit paste (see my Date Paste {Natural Sweetener | Sugar Substitute} post ) for natural sweetness or simply sugar to balance the flavors.

In your 2L /3Litre standardized pressure cooker ( I use 3L), add 1.5 tbsp oil and 1.5 tbsp butter along with bay leaf.  I don’t add water, but if you fear burning, add 2-3 tbsp water as well.

Tips: Please refer How to standardize your pressure cooker for OPOS.

Next add onion, celery, garlic and bell pepper. I add the bell pepper for texture as well as color. The celery is peppery and compliments the sweet tomatoes. You can add green chillies if you like at this point.

Tips: You can use ginger-garlic paste instead of garlic.  See how to make quick OPOS Ginger Garlic Paste.

Next add in the tomatoes.  I did not have beetroot on hand, hence I used about 2 tbsp beetroot powder. You don’t taste beets at this quantity but it does help with adding depth in color. You can instead use about 2 tbsp- 1/4 cups (or as needed) grated or small size cubed beetroot. You don’t want to keep them big chunks since that will take longer to cook.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Close with the lid, place the weight and cook on high heat. If cooking over stove top, make sure the flames don’t come up the sides.

We are looking for 3 long whistles and for this quantity/cooker combo takes around 10-11 mins with the pressure building/pressure valve popping up at about 8 minutes.  The number of whistles, I find, mostly depends on how watery your tomatoes are. There are more whistles with more water content in tomatoes. So, in that case, aim for around 10 minutes cooking time.

Troubleshooting Notes: If you find that there is no whistle at even 10 minute mark – check your cooker. There might be steam seeping out. If you sense burning – switch off immediately and release pressure.  In 99% cases, the food is not yet burnt when you just start getting the smell and you can totally save the food.

Once done, switch off heat and manually release pressure. Use a spatula to avoid scalding.

This is how it looks upon opening.  You can use a hand blender at this point.

I transferred it to my food processor since I love how well it purees my soup. The color is dark maroon red when you start blending

and gradually (upon addition of air cos of blending) lightens up in color to deep orange. Add water or milk and/or cream to adjust the consistency as per your preference. I added just a little more water since we like it with a thick’ish(!) consistency.