Pappa Al Pomodoro

Visions of a Tuscan summer come with each spoonful of this simple, richly flavored Italian tradition. Using only the freshest tomatoes at the peak of their flavor, this simple soup is summer at its best.

Pappa Al Pomodoro

Makes 3-4 servings

INGREDIENT LIST:
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced
2 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes, diced (do not peel or seed)
3-4 cups spring or filtered water
1 whole carrot, unpeeled
Sea salt
1 small loaf whole-grain sourdough bread, coarsely crumbled
2 teaspoons sweet white miso
1 small bunch fresh basil, finely minced
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS:
Place the oil and the garlic in a soup pot over medium heat. As soon as the garlic begins to sizzle (do not let it burn), add the tomatoes and water. Bring to a boil and add the carrot, several pinches of salt and the bread. Stir well, cover and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the bread is quite soft, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the carrot from the pot and discard. Remove a small amount of broth and use to dissolve the miso. Stir the miso mixture into the soup and simmer, uncovered, for 3 to 4 minutes to activate the enzymes in the miso. Stir in the basil and serve.

Now if you’ve known me for more than 6 seconds you know that I love every single thing about Italy from my Heritage in Naples to the food to the culture to their what I call type f personalities like we seem to be all type A type A get it done get it done

Get it done type f is oh I didn’t get that done let’s have a coffee and do it tomorrow not that Italians aren’t productive I mean they gave us Ducati Ferrari and Michelangelo so they’re clearly getting something done but when it comes to the table there’s no rush

They care about the soil they care about where their food comes from they still cook and enjoy a meal with family and friends it’s stunning when I get to Italy I feel every bit of stress leave my body and I just relax into the joy of cooking and enjoying meals with people I

Love now when I was a kid my mother and father worked very hard we didn’t have a lot of money but we always had food and my mother could figure out a way to do what she called Loaves and Fishes more than we cared to admit and this was one

Of her favorite summer recipes that kept us fed when things were tighter than they should be so what we’re going to do is take some extra virgin olive oil actually it’s going to seem like a generous amount because it is and this extra virgin olive oil has to soak up

Into the tomatoes and into the whole grain bread that’s going into this soup now this is called Papa Pomodoro meaning a thick soup made of tomatoes and what they did was this was a farm style cooking so what they did was they would take and make a tomato soup and then the

Next day they’d have to stretch it so they would add stale bread so it’s kind of a brilliant sort of thing so what we do is take a nice fresh summer tomato you know your knife is sharp by the way when it can cut a tomato and not turn

That tomato into puree so we’re going to take and take the core out now I don’t peel or seed tomatoes for this soup and somebody I’m sure will call my office and say she didn’t peel the tomatoes or seed them I don’t like to I think that

Mother nature gave us the peel and the seeds and so I use them so you want to make a large dice of your tomato you’re going to need about 2 lbs for this soup and you just cut them you can see it didn’t take any effort at all because my knife is well

Sharp then I’m going to clean my board which I always do in between veggies it keeps your board and your work area nice and neat which is very Italian and it also allows your food to not blend flavors so this is going to go into the

Olive oil which is not turned on right there’s no sizzle the reason the olive oil is not turned on is because while it’s a high heat oil for cooking the flavor changes quickly under heat so I usually put my tomatoes or whatever my first ingredient is in the oil and then

Turn on the heat and we’ll also stir in some garlic this soup has very few ingredients and loads of flavor and while tomatoes are tomatoes and we love them in salads and we love them in sauces the beauty of tomatoes is that they’re loaded with vitamin C because they’re actually a fruit and

They’re also loaded with a compound known as lycopene and lopine creates reproductive wellness and because we cook the tomatoes with olive oil that lopine is 60% more absorbable by the body so you’re welcome a little bit of salt so that Tomatoes start to release their juices now some people say can you

Add onions can you add hot spice you can you can make this simple soup as complex as you’d like or use the classic recipe which is garlic or onion tomatoes and bread the next thing to go in is a whole grain bread and what I use whole grain

Traditionally it’s a white Italian bread but I use crust and everything and you just tear it and it’s a bit of a workout so you tear the bread and it goes in and you’re going to put about a half loaf into soup for maybe four people you use

The inside you use the crust and if the bread’s too much for you to handle because it’s you know not shredding as you’d like you want to make sure it’s stale so it should be a little bit harder to pull apart you can also take a bread knife and cut it into chunks

And then rip those slices into the soup once you get the last of your bread in there like this I kind of don’t put the really hard chunky heel in cuz I saved this to dip in while the soup’s cooking then you add a whole carrot my

Mother used to put an entire carrot in and what this does is absorb the acid from the tomatoes when when you take the whole carrot out what you’ll find is the carrot tastes like it’s been soaked in vinegar so that’s the way you absorb something known as solanine which is an

Alkaloid that actually can create pain in arthritic joints then you add water to just cover the tomatoes push the bread down so it all is sort of submerged cover it and let it cook for 30 minutes and when you see how creamy this gets it will be divine let’s season

Our soup it’s gotten nice and creamy it’s it’s beautiful look at this just look how gorgeous that is the bread has melted so now it’s like sort of a homogeneous soup so now you want to take the carrot out and get rid of it and now we’re going to season the

Soup so you want to take a little bit of your hot broth usually they finish off this soup in Italian cooking with a little bit of Parmesan cheese we’re not going to do that we’re gonna take a little bit of white miso and white miso is good for digestion it’s like the original

Probiotic it’s soybeans salt and grain aged in wooden barrels so that there’s live enzymes and friendly bacteria this is like the greatest thing for digestion ever but white miso has the flavor of Parmesan cheese so it’s like you winwin with win and you get to digest the soup so

You’re just going to stir this in take your soup down to a simmer and stir in the dissolved miso and we’re just going to let that sort of simmer in all its wonderfulness for a few more minutes Let’s Bowl up our soup so it’s all finished it’s nice and creamy just make

A nice hearty Bowl you got nice like creamy chunks of bread and tomato make a nice serving some fresh basil leaves for garnish just like a whole gigantic sprig on top and it looks really beautiful it’s the perfect summer soup