Sopas de Tomate Extremeñas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide heavy pot or olla
• •Grater for the tomatoes
• •Wide cazuela de barro or deep serving dish

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the bread

   Slice the day-old bread thinly, about 1cm, and lay it in a wide earthenware cazuela or deep serving dish. If the bread is very fresh, dry the slices in a low oven for 10 minutes. Soft bread collapses; stale bread holds the soup and still gives you something to chew.

2. 2

   Start the sofrito

   Warm the olive oil in a wide pot over medium-low heat. Add the sliced garlic and cook just until it smells sweet, not brown. Add the onion, green pepper, bay leaf, and salt, then cook 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until the pepper softens and the onion turns pale gold.

3. 3

   Cook the tomato down

   Add the grated tomato and cook gently for 18 to 22 minutes, until the raw water has cooked off, the colour deepens, and the oil begins to show around the edges. This is the step that decides the soup. Stop too early and the bread soaks up sharp tomato water; cook it down and the broth tastes round and sweet.

   If using canned whole tomatoes or tomate triturado, crush them well and cook them 5 minutes longer. They bring less fresh brightness, but they make a good winter soup.
4. 4

   Add pimentón and water

   Pull the pot off the heat and stir in the pimentón de la Vera for a few seconds, just until the oil turns brick red. Do not let it fry hard or it turns bitter. Add the water, return the pot to the heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Taste for salt; the broth should be a little bold because the bread will soften it.

5. 5

   Poach the eggs

   If using eggs, crack them one by one into the barely bubbling soup, cover the pot, and cook 4 to 5 minutes, until the whites set and the yolks stay soft. Or leave them out. The bread soup is still the dish; the egg only makes it a fuller supper.

6. 6

   Soak and serve

   Pour the hot soup over the sliced bread, setting one egg into each bowl if you used them. Let it sit 5 minutes so the bread swells and the edges soften without turning to paste. Finish with a few mint leaves if that is how your house takes it, then spoon it out while the oil still shines red at the rim.

Chef Tips

• •Use tomatoes when they are worth cooking, heavy and ripe. If the market only has hard pale ones, use good canned whole tomatoes or tomate triturado instead and cook them down longer.
• •The bread must be firm and stale: pan candeal, a country loaf, or another tight-crumb white bread. Sandwich bread turns gluey, and that is not a shortcut, it is a punishment.
• •Use pimentón de la Vera, sweet and smoked. If you only have ordinary sweet paprika, the soup will still feed you, but it loses the Extremaduran smoke that belongs to the dish.
• •Some Extremaduran homes add mint, hierbabuena, at the end. Use a few leaves, not a handful. It should lift the tomato, not make the pot taste like tea.

Advance Preparation

• •The sofrito can be cooked up to 2 days ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator. Rewarm it, add the water, and continue from there.
• •Slice the bread several hours ahead so it dries a little more. The drier the loaf, the better it drinks the broth without falling apart.
• •Once the soup has been poured over the bread, serve it within 15 minutes. Left too long, it thickens past soup and becomes another thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 560g)