Tomato and Cumin Soup

Aug 5, 2010 by glutenshmooten

Week 35 of the Cookbook Challenge and the theme is Spanish. I thought I’d give my Movida Rustica cookbook another go, despite my last recipe attempt, Nougat, being a disaster!

This time I went for a soup recipe, surely you can’t get a soup recipe wrong!

Ingredients:

50ml extra virgin olive oil

1 red onion, rougly chopped

1 large red capsicum, seeded and membranes removed, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1kg ripe tomatoes, peeled and rougly chopped (I cheated here and just used diced tomatoes from a can)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds, roasted and ground (again I cheated and got ground cumin)

2 teaspoons caster sugar

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

2 teaspoons sea salt

6 eggs

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes, or until soft and translucent. Add the capsicum and garlic and reduce the heat to low-medium. Cover and cook, stirring occassionally, for 40 minutes, or until the mixture has a jam-like consistency. (Now at this point I was really confused, if I left just onion, garlic and capsicum in the pan for 40 minutes I would have burnt the house down, so I added about a cup of water so it didn’t burn).

Stir in the tomatoes and 700ml water and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the mixture has a soupy consistency. Add the cumin, sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the paprika and the sea salt and combine well.

Crack the eggs, one at a time, into a cup, then gently slide them into the soup around the edges. Cover and simmer gently for 3 minutes for soft eggs, or 5-6 minutes for well-done eggs.

Gently divide the cooked eggs and soup among warm bowls. Sprinkle with the remaining paprika and serve with toasted bread.

In the end this turned out nicely – the soup was beautiful and rich with a hint of spice. The eggs were interesting – it made the soup quite filling so this can easily be a full meal.

Tomato and Cumin Soup, 8.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating