Here is my adapted Condensed Tomato Soup recipe using Clear Jel as the thickener in place of the usually flour and butter roux. Whitney Donohue was kind enough to make the recipe this week and sent me the pic and review of the final product. Very excited to have this recipe in my library.
Condensed Tomato Soup
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| Whitney Donohue's Tomato Soup! It turned out great, and half-pint jars are perfect (really! a 10-oz can is just a bit too much). |
Ingredients
8 lbs ripe tomatoes, unpeeled, quartered
1 cup celery, diced
2 cups onion, diced
1 large green or red pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup fresh parsley
6 bay leaves
3/4 cup Clear-Jel
2 1/2 Tablespoons salt (not required and can salt when serving)
Directions
Place tomatoes, celery, onion, green pepper in a large stainless steel pot and bring to a boil. Add parsley and bay leaves. Cook uncovered until tender, stirring as needed.
Press through a food mill or sieve into a large stainless steel or enameled cast iron saucepan, add salt.
Mix Clear Jel by adding it to a ½ cup of cooled tomato puree. Bring soup back to a boil and stir in the diluted Clear Jel. Continue to boil for two minutes till thick consistency.
Ladle into pint jars and fill to 1” headspace. Add 1 T. bottled lemon juice to each pint and Wipe rims and add hot lids and rings.
Process in pressure canner at 10 pounds of pressure for weighted gauge and 11 pounds for dial gauge, for 25 minutes for pints or half pints. Do not use quarts for this recipe.
When ready to make the soup just heat with equal amount of liquid such as milk, water or chickenbroth.
Using the Clear Jel will leave no taste to the soup.
10 comments:
I was just wondering as to your take on the butter/margarine & flour in the original recipe. Our family has been making it that way since long before I was born. I prefer the taste of the butter/margarine in the soup as to the taste without it.
mdelp - the concern is the studies and testing they have done in the last ten years regarding canning with butter or fats and flours or thickeners. The heat required to kill the microorganisms in the jar can not be achieved in a pressure or water bath canner for these two ingredients. As a result jars overtime can grow bacteria which could lead to botulism. If you have done it in the past you were just lucky.
Do you have to use the Clear Jel? I have severe food sensitivities especially the ingredients in the Clear Jel and try to avoid it.
Thanks!
Ok, I must have done something wrong. I followed this recipe and I ended up with 8 pints and a half pint. Was I supposed to cook it down way longer? I cooked veggies until tender, put through my food mill and then brought back to a boil and added the clear gel. How thick was it supposed to be? *sigh*
Sandie,
You need to add the clear jel to a bit of the veggie puree and boil till the clear jel is thick then add the diluted clear jel back.
I don't understand the term "condensed" in this context ... is it cooked down to remove the water thereby condensing it? Is it just thickened with the Clear Jel and if so, isn't it more of a tomato jelly? Does it get watered down when reconstituted to eat if it didn't have the water removed in the first place? I'd love to make tomato soup again, but the recipe I used for 30 years (and my mom & grandma before me!) has butter and flour as thickeners ... which we now know is "unsafe" It was the BEST tomato soup ever and I would really like to make a similar one, but I'm unsure of this Clear Jel addition. Anyone tried this and eaten it after it's been in the jar for a while? Perhaps I could can it without the Clear Jel and thicken it when using it?
can this be done in a water bath canner? I do not have a pressure cooker?
Marla this has to be in a pressure canner.. sorry!
I got 8 pints as well as a little extra. It tasted delicious! I added a couple of chili peppers to give it just a little kick. Why can't this be done in quart jars?
I ended up with 6 pints using my Amish Paste tomatoes and running it through my strainer.
It would help if lemon juice was listed in the ingredients too...I nearly missed it down there!
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