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Ingredients
- 4 pounds very ripe tomatoes, a mixture of heirloom and vine ripened
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
- 1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon Morton kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
- 1 star anise pod
- 1 bay leaf
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- 2 cups water
- ⅓ cup jasmine rice
- Extra virgin olive oil, for garnish
- Aleppo pepper, for garnish, optional
- Fresh basil leaves, torn, for garnish, optional
Method
- Using a paring knife, cut the core from the tomatoes and roughly chop them. Add them to the bowl of a blender or food processor and purée them, in batches if necessary.
- Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and salt, stirring occasionally so the onion slices sweat, becoming soft and translucent, but not coloring. Add the sweet paprika, Aleppo pepper, star anise, bay leaf and more salt, and stir again so that the spices toast for a minute or two, until they’re super fragrant. Add the tomato paste, stirring; letting it cook for another couple of minutes so that it builds flavor. Add the puréed tomatoes and water and increase the heat to high. When the soup is boiling, you can skim off any foam if you want, but be careful not to skim off the spices. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer gently until it’s just starting to thicken, about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, rinse the rice in a sieve until the water runs clear—be thorough here, as any remaining starch can gum up the soup. Once the soup has thickened a bit, add the rice to the pot and let it simmer away, stirring occasionally, until the rice is cooked, 20 to 30 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaf and star anise or make it a game to see who finds them in the bowls. Ladle the soup into warm bowls. Sprinkle with Aleppo pepper and finish with a drizzle of olive oil and optional basil leaves. Serve immediately.
Jacques Pépin once had a restaurant in Manhattan dedicated to serving soup. As a fellow soup lover, I thought I’d share a recipe that my grandmother would prepare for me as a child. It’s a recipe for tomato soup with rice, and she would serve it to me when I wasn’t feeling well. I eventually faked being sick just so she would cook it for me. Chef Pépin has taught us lessons throughout the years of how to cook to feed the soul, and this recipe embodies that notion for me.