The most amazing tomato soup recipe I can't find

December 14, 2013 4:33 PM

A long time ago in country far, far away, I was friends with a dude from Bangalore who ran an Indian restaurant. He had this tomato soup, and he'd never tell me the recipe. Google fails me.

Nana's tomato soup had, he said, either 11, or 17 (it was a decade ago, I forget, but it was definitely a two-digit prime number) different spices in it. The soup was amazing. It had this incredibly complex flavor. It was as good as drugs or sex. Just amazing tomato soup. I can't find anything on the interwebs that comes even close. But maybe you know...

posted by colin_l to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

Maybe it was Tamatar Shorba?
posted by whimsicalnymph at 4:45 PM on December 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Was it a vegetarian soup? What ethnic group of India was your friend from? That might help narrow it down.
posted by discopolo at 4:52 PM on December 14, 2013

Best answer: I had a tomato soup at an Indian restaurant that was effing amazing. It was so good that I asked the waiter if he could tell me what was in it. It was so effing simple I couldn't believe it - 1 28 oz can of whole tomatoes in juice. Run it through a blender and then a strainer. Heat up the liquid, add 1 T masala powder and a pat of butter.
posted by plinth at 6:05 PM on December 14, 2013 [10 favorites]

I wonder if it might be a rasam (Indian soup) and a tomato-based one is called Thakkali Rasam. Sometimes it can be made sour with tamarind, but often it's a plain tomato and spice recipe. Try looking at some of the recipes and see if something sounds familiar?
posted by ninazer0 at 6:41 PM on December 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My mom puts cumin and coriander seeds in a can of Campbell's and it tastes amazing. Perhaps it was something similar?
posted by echo0720 at 7:09 PM on December 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It's probably tomato puree with some butter along with a masala. A masala (spice mix) can easily have 10+ ingredients and many Indian families have their own traditional recipes with various ratios of the spices. If you're near an Indian grocery, they may have some pre-mixed masalas of various types that you can play with to approximate the taste you remember. There are likely many online spice vendors who could be a source if you're not near an Indian grocery. Unfortunately, although there are some more standardized masalas (like garam masala), many masalas are more like a fingerprint and can be challenging to duplicate. That said, with your memories being 10 years old, a garam masala and a general mixed masala together could get you very close to what you remember.
posted by quince at 8:05 PM on December 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Mulligatawny? It's something like Indian minestrone, which I always associate with tomatoes.
posted by undue influence at 8:21 PM on December 14, 2013

Best answer: I do not have a specific recipe but an easy place to start would be plinth's suggestion, using ghee/clarified butter regular butter (or oil). However you make it, dry toast the spices in the pan first over med-hi heat, add the ghee, mix quickly to a paste, then add the pureed strained tomatoes.
posted by variella at 9:30 PM on December 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

missed the edit window. that should be "using ghee/clarified butter instead of regular butter or oil"
posted by variella at 9:38 PM on December 14, 2013

I can tell you that Indian tomato varieties are not hybridized for color, robustness and longer shelf life, are not stored in the refrigerator (they lose their flavor below 50 degrees F) and extremely delicious by themselves unlike what you can purchase in the US. Better tomatoes equals better soup.
posted by cynicalidealist at 5:53 AM on December 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If it's the same Indian tomato soup I love and crave, you'll have success searching for recipes with "rasam" in the name. They often involve tamarind, which gives it a delicious tangyness. This one, while minus the tamarind (I imagine that's what the optional brown sugar is supposed to account for) and not directly from an Indian source, comes very close to what I get from the Indian places in the city.
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:14 PM on December 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Many thanks, all. I suspect I have a lot of experimenting in my future!
posted by colin_l at 8:21 PM on December 15, 2013