Roast Tomato & Garlic Soup with a Basil Mascarpone Topping

For my mam and dad's 14th wedding anniversary, I decided that I would make dinner for them as an anniversary treat. I chose this recipe from my mam's book, Apron Strings, & I added some cooked spagettii and used the soup as a pasta sauce. This soup is full of flavour and it turned out really well.

Roast Tomato & Garlic Soup with a Basil Mascarpone Topping

Ingredients

850g fresh tomatoes, quartered

10 garlic cloves, peeled & cut in half

1 red onion, roughly chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 teasp sugar

salt & pepper

600mls chicken/vegetable stock

handful basil leaves

150g mascarpone

To Serve

100g mascarpone

2 tbsp basil pesto
small basil leaves

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2. Put the chopped tomatoes, garlic cloves and onion in an over proof dish. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle over the sugar and season with a pinch of sea salt and some freshly ground pepper.

3. Wash your hands and massage all the ingredients together until the tomatoes and onion are well combined with all the other ingredients.

4. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes. 

5. Meanwhile in a large saucepan heat the stock, stir in the cooked roasted tomato mix and add the basil. Simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes.
6. Blend the soup until smooth with a liquidiser or hand blender.

7. Return to the heat and stir through the mascarpone.

8. To make the topping, combine the 100g of mascarpone with the basil pesto in a bowl.

9. Serve the soup in a bowl or teacup with a dollop of the basil mascarpone and a few small basil leaves to garnish.

Neven Maguire's Chicken Korma

This recipe is from Neven Maguire's Neven Cook's 2. This would be one of my favourite chicken dishes.

Neven Maguire's Chicken Korma

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 teasp finely grated root ginger

1 green chilli,seeded and finely chopped
1 teasp garam marsala

1 teasp ground turmeric

1/4 teasp chilli powder

14oz/ 400g can chopped tomatoes

1 teasp tomatoe puree

4 chicken breasts

1/4 pint/ 150mls cream

To Serve

2 tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander

salt and freshly ground black pepper

cooked basmati rice

warmed naan bread

Method

1. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onions and garlic for about 10 mins until golden brown. Stir in the ginger and chillli and cook for 1 minute, stirring.

2. Add the garam masala to the pan with turmeric, chilli powder and a pinch of salt and cook for another minute, stirring.

3. Add the tomatoes, tomato puree and 1/4 pint / 150ml of water, stir well to combine. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 mins until the sauce is so well reduced that it is almost sticking to the bottom of the pan and the oil has separated out on the surface, stirring occasionally.

4. Add the chicken to the pan with a few tbsp of water to the reduced sauce.

5. Slowly bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 20 mins or until the chicken is completely cooked.

6. Stir in the cream and simmer gently for a couple of mins. Season to taste.

Serve with a scattering of fresh coriander, boiled basmati rie and warmed naan bread.