Ramen Carbonara
Julia Moskin, "Breakfast: The Most Important Book About the Best Meal of the Day"
2664 ratings with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars
2,664
25 minutes
Advertisement
In a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat, melt the butter. Once it starts bubbling, stir in the onions and sauté until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic, red-pepper flakes, and generous pinches of salt and pepper, and sauté until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and their juices, 1 cup water and the Parmesan rind, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes are broken down and the mixture has thickened, about 30 minutes. (If you find during your stirring that the Parmesan rind is stuck to the bottom or sides of the pot, pry it off with a wooden spoon.)
Remove the rind from the soup, and let cool slightly. If you’re planning to make the Parmesan toast, heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Use an immersion blender to purée the soup. (Alternatively, ladle the soup into a blender, and blend until smooth. For a super-smooth soup, run it through a fine-mesh sieve.) Season to taste with salt, pepper and grated Parmesan.
If you’re making the toast, rub 1 side of each slice of baguette with the garlic clove, then place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle cheese over the top, then bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Serve the soup with a toast alongside or on top.
Stupid question? I have parm rinds & they have mold on the outside of the rinds. Should I scrape off old mold first before using?
I always wrap my rinds in cheese cloth. Keeps the cheese from sticking to the pot.
where do you get the rinds
Halved the recipe because my husband “doesn’t like tomato soup.” Then he ate half of it. I used half white wine and half water instead of just water. It was perfectly spicy and tangy. I started to strain it like the recipe suggests, but ended up with thin tomato juice. So I stopped straining it and ate it straight from the blender. The texture was perfect. This is a great dish to keep in your back pocket for days you haven’t gone grocery shopping and still need to throw something together.
Sue - You need to buy a wedge of authentic Parmesan cheese. After grating the cheese, you'll have the rind leftover for using in soups and stews. They add a great flavor. Just store the rinds in the freezer until you need to use them.
Perfect as written, at least for me; I used certified San Marzano tomatoes. (I wouldn't use Muir Glen in this recipe; it is so simple, they will be too "exposed", plus you will probably need to strain as well as blend.) Makes for four, meaning four "cup" size portions, and I think that's right as it is too rich to want more. Would be a serious starter for a serious Italian meal. (Or French) But I enjoyed it with a grilled cheddar sandwich and a green salad! Simple and divine.
This is the best tomato soup I have ever made and I have made more tomatoes soups than I can count. Excellent as a starter for a dinner party.
I got a 3 lb bag of Grana Padano wheel rinds from a local chef that has so many he reluctantly throws them out. He hates that. It remain a magic ingredient. In veg broths it's awesome. Glutamic and lactic goodness I think. (Corn cob and parm rind broth is delicious.) I made this soup per recipe but added more water periodically, stirred every 10m to ensure extra parm extraction and emulsification and avoid accidental burn. I went two hours on simmer. No puree. Delicious. Easy.
Delicious and easy! Cautionary notes: don't blend it without removing the parmesan cheese rind - lots of work scrubbing the cheese off the immersion blender blade, and don't use too much of the red pepper flakes (test them first to see if they are super spicy) - I had to dilute the soup to make it palatable :(
Place your parm rinds in a piece of cheesecloth that is large enough to completely hold them. Gather the cheesecloth up ( to make like a little purse ) in the middle and tie a tight knot with some kitchen twine. Place it in the soup pot with the rest of the ingredients. No more sticky cheese on the pot! At the end of cooking, simply lift it out.
Low-quality cheese??? Either you buy and cook with authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano or you cook a dish that's not Italian.
Crazy simple. Great flavor. Might add a bit more of the red pepper flakes next time. With Muir Glen organic tomatoes, the final color was almost as red as the picture. On the occasional stir, tried to leave the parm rind (cut in half to reduce weight) resting on top of a tomato at the soup’s surface to keep it from sticking to the pot, which another fellow cook warned about. Served with grilled cheese sandwiches (sharp Irish cheddar), as Sam suggested he would. Yum.
If you don't blend this soup, it makes a very good tomato sauce for pasta.
Cooking with Parmesan rind gives nice depth. Great that it is so simple--perfect for when you're running low on ingredients! I swirled a dollop of whole milk kefir into the soup when I served it for extra richness and to balance the red pepper
Loved the soup. Had a mild spicy kick from the red peppers. Most of my parmesan grind melted in the soup, though, and was a sloppy mess to take out. Maybe I just bought low quality cheese. Anyway, the color turned out more orange than the red display picture. Would give it a 4/5.
Used 1/2 white wine and NOT a good result.
Delightful with a tablespoon or two of vodka
Also try 2/3s the butter
use half white wine
I'm normally not a fan of Ali Slagle's recipes, but this is an exception. This is a great pantry soup to keep in your back pocket for those days when you can't be bothered to go to the grocery store (if your freezer is full of parmesan rinds, which mine always is—we go through parm like water in this household!). I used the Vitamix liquify setting rather than bothering with an immersion blender and sieve, and it came out silky smooth.
Subbed in 1/4 cup of white wine out of the water. Soup smelled delicious but I found it was majorly lacking in flavour. Needed lots of salt, a pinch of sugar, and more black pepper to give it some punch. Might need to try a different canned tomato brand.
Used canned San Marzano tomatoes. Added a little rosemary and thyme. Really acidic final product. Added honey and sugar at the end. Sue me.
This was delicious! We made it as instructed and loved it.
A drizzle of truffle oil is really nice.
Used the roasted winter tomato recipe first, then put this all together. Low and slow cooked. Lovely. Thanks.
Since the rinds I bought were in small chunks, I put them in a cheesecloth bundle which I pressed into the side of the pot after simmering. Worked really well. Soup was delicious!
Best tomato soup EVER!
I used chicken broth instead of water. If you love tomato soup, this is the best, hands down. I sprinkled grated Parmesan on top of the individual servings.
I used three Parmesan rinds which may have been too much. Used 365 brand canned tomatoes. End product was more acidic than I had hoped and overboard on the Parmesan flavor. Will try again w/ San Marzano and one rind. High hopes for round two.
Doubled the recipe for a larger group. Used two cans of quality whole peeled tomatoes, once can of fire roasted tomatoes and a can of Rotel tomatoes with green chilis. For the bread I melted butter, with salt and minced garlic. Brushed that mixture on before sprinkling on the parmesan. This was super easy and HUGE hit.
Advertisement