Egg-celent Soup

Eggplant is a vegetable most people have no idea what to do with, except to make Eggplant Parmesan.  Well, here is another wonderful soup for this oh so colorful vegetable.  Eggplant-Tomato Soup is a yummy, warm treat for anyone looking for a light and delicious soup.  This is light enough to enjoy pre-dinner (they say we should eat a light course, such as soup, before going out to dinner so we’ll eat less of the ‘bad’ foods..whatever those are) or as a full meal with some scrumptious home-made bread!

Eggplant-Tomato Soup

You will need:

onions (red or yellow), carrots & celery (determine how much you need based on the explanation below); chop into 1/2″ square pieces after prepping veggies (i.e., taking outer shell off onions, peeling carrots, washing and trimming celery)

eggplant (3-4); peel the skin off (all the purple) as well as the green head, chop into 2″ square pieces

tomatoes (plum is best) (6-7); take off stems and core, then dice tomatoes.  You can also use canned, diced tomatoes, but you’ll lose the truly handmade/homemade factor.

Stock (4-5 cups) I would use chicken stock (good quality) or a vegetable stock.  In my opinion, a beef stock would take away from the vegetable flavor.

Oil (1 cup) I prefer good quality olive oil, but canola, peanut, and even vegetable oils will all work.

Butter (1/2 lb.)

Garlic Powder (1 tbsp.)

Celery Salt (1/2 tbsp.)

SnP (1 tbsp.) This is just basic salt and pepper that has been mixed, if you don’t have it mixed together just add 1/2 tbsp. of each to your soup.

Stockpot, stirring spoon or whisk (or fork…don’t scratch your pot though), mixer (hand-held, blender, food processor..whatever works).

So you’ll wanna start with your basic mirepoix: 2 part onions, 1 part celery & 1 part carrot.  Depending on how much soup you want to make, you’ll adjust your mirepoix.  The basic 2:1:1 will suffice for 6-8 servings.  In a stockpot, start melting 1/2 lb. of butter on high (which melts the butter, but also heats the whole pot up).  Add your mirepoix and eggplant to the hot pot; reduce the heat to med-low.  You’ll want to place a lid on the pot or even better place a paper towel or wax paper down into the pot to cover the veggies.  This creates a steam trap which cooks the veggies more evenly.  This is the base of the soup…all veggies!

Stir the veggies every couple of minutes until all veggies are hot.  Then add oil…I prefer a good quality olive oil, but canola or peanut oils will work great too.  Vegetable oil will work as well, but will make the soup heavier and of course more fattening.  At this time you can add the tomatoes as well.  Let the veggies cook down on low heat for 20-30 minutes.  You’ll notice them get softer as you stir them every 5-10 minutes.  The whole concoction will become more soupy and mushy as the water cooks out of the veggies and into the oils.

Now you need to mix the veggies and oils together by either mushing and stiring a lot or (the easier way) blending everything together.  Using a blender, food processor, or a hand-held mixer (best option), blend all the soft veggies and oils together until you get a yummy mush.  You can add the mush back to the same pot (don’t bother cleaning it out) and turn the heat up to medium.

Next add the stock.  Stir in stock until everything is mixed together.  Add garlic powder, celery salt and SnP and give everything a good stir together.  You may notice the garlic powder will clump a bit, but this can be broken up my stiring with a whisk (or fork) or by running the handheld mixer through the soup once more.  Let soup simmer for another 10 minutes or so, until everything is heated through.  Because of the nature of eggplant (add tomato seeds), this soup will be a bit more ‘chunky’ than say the squash soup, but it should in no way be ‘chewable’.  The texture lends to the overall experience!

As always, taste the soup to make sure you like the seasoning combination and ad-lib to your tasts if necessary.  Serve up hot with a nice cold salad or some yummy homemade bread and ENJOY!