Roast Tomato Soup with Pearl Barley - Comfort Food in a Bowl for a Chilly Winter´s Day

A lovely Roast Tomato Soup with Pearl Barley is a wonderful recipe to warm your heart and soul during the winter months. A rich, thick soup brimming with flavor is more than a meal in itself. In our house, soup is lunch or dinner, I usually serve it as a meal, not to start a meal.

Roast Tomato Soup with Pearl Barley

Ingredients for the Soup

• 2kg (4½lbs) large ripe tomatoes, washed, halved, cores removed
• 1 garlic bulb, cut in half horizontally
• 2 large red onions, peeled, quartered
• few sprigs fresh oregano
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 250ml (9fl oz) vegetable stock (or more, depending on how thick you like your soup)
• 100ml (3½fl oz) single cream (optional - I always use 10% cream suitable for cooking)
• few drops balsamic vinegar (optional - itry to use a good product with a bit of natural sweetness)

For the Pearl Barley

• 250 gram of cooked Barley (according to package instructions)

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).
2. For the soup, place the prepared tomatoes, garlic, onions and oregano into a large roasting pan and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
3. Drizzle with the olive oil, and roast in the oven for about 40 to 50 minutes.
4. Remove from the pan from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.
5. Mash the garlic with the back of a fork, and discard the skins.
6. Add the tomatoes, onions, mashed garlic and stock to a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil over high heat.
7. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened.
8. Using a hand-held stick blender, blend until smooth.
9. If the soup is too thick, add more stock or cream.
10. Add a little balsamic vinegar, to season, if you like.
11. Add the cooked pearl barley (reserve some for sprinkling on top of the soup - optional), salt and pepper and stir to combine.
12. Divide the soup between serving bowls and top with reserved pearly barley and/or some fresh cress.

This recipe is perfect even for out-of season tomatoes. If the tomatoes are really lacking in taste or sweetness, you could dust them with a little bit of confectioner´s sugar prior to roasting them. The addition of some Aceto Balsamico as well as using the red onions instead of white onions also helps to improve the sweetness of the tomatoes.

Make a big batch of this comforting soup, enjoy and share and stay warm this winter! It is cold out there!