Jono & Jules do food & wine

The perfect soup for a glut of ripe tomatoes, there’s not much point otherwise as the forced imported ones won’t have enough flavour.

Fresh tomato soup – serves 4

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1 celery, finely chopped
• 50g butter
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 500g very ripe tomatoes
• 850ml chicken stock
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche, plus extra to serve if you like
• a few basil leaves (only if you have them!)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for about 15 minutes or until very soft.

Add the thyme and bay leaves and cook for a minute, then add the tomatoes,  chicken stock and some seasoning. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Discard the herbs, add the crème fraîche and whizz until smooth. Check the seasoning and serve with some extra crème fraîche if you like and a few basil leaves.

(Original recipe by Janine Ratcliffe in Olive Magazine, September 2016.)