'Dikke Tom Soep'

Roughly translated: "Thick 'Tom' Soup" - 'Tom' here isn't a person or a cat, it's short for Tomatoes (what else?)

My mom used to (and still does!) make this soup when it was cold or when people needed cheering up or just for no reason at all except that it tasted VERY GOOD!!

Today I suddenly felt a craving for that soup. The weather had taken a turn for the colder regions of the thermometer and I didn't relish driving back through the rain. So I did what every self-respecting Web-Jockey would do and googled for a similar recipe.

No luck. Lots of soups thickened by adding bread (ciabatta) or cream, but I knew this one got its thickness from potatoes. So I did the next best thing and SMSed my mum to ask if she could send me the recipe. God bless her, because within 10 minutes a mail arrived with the needed ingredients.

And as any good cook knows: you don't need any precise measurements. It leaves room for creativity and experimentation. So without further roundabouts, I'll reproduce the recipe here, slightly altered and with some annotations from moi.

Thick 'Tom' Soup.

Ingredients:

• Celery
• Celeriac
• Leeks
• Carrots
• Onion
  
• Potatoes
• (vegetable) Stock cube(s)
• Tomato puree
• Beef mince
• Breadcrumbs
• Egg(s)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Nutmeg

First, dice the onion small. For a big pot of soup use one big onion. For a small one, half of that onion or a small one. Then, dice as much of the celery, leeks and carrots as you want for the portions you want. My mum said about 200g in total for each person which will give you a nice generous portion (or two smaller ones) - I made about equal measures of each, with a little less leek as my darlin wife doesn't like that too much. Also chop up an amount of celeriac. Make this less than the other vegs, as it has a very powerful taste and can overpower it.

After that, peel and dice about two big potatoes per person or portion. Again, do this to taste, but it is the binding agent, so don't skimp on it. In the end, I had two bolws with about an equal volume of the veg mix in one (minus the onion) and potatoes in the other. This seemed to work well, so I guess that's a nice measure.

In the stockpot you're using, heat some oil and fry the onion until transparent but not brown, and then add the vegetables and heat them until they've wilted a bit (especially the leeks) - Don't worry about how long, just get them nicely heated through and on their way to becoming soft. We're going to boil the heck out of them soon anyway.

After you're OK the veg is nice and hot, add the potatoes and add warm water until the contents of the pan are juuuust covered. Actually a little less. Too much water isn't good, you can add more later if needed. also add one or two stock cubes to taste. You will need some seasoning, and vegetable stock cubes worked nicely for me.

Get this to the boil and let it simmer until everything is good an tender. I think it took me about 15 minutes of simmering, but depending on the size of your chunks, that might be more or less. Also: the carrots were still a bit 'al dente', but not overly so.

Whilst the soup is simmering, mix some beef mince with breadcrumbs, egg, nutmeg, pepper and salt and give it a good kneading/squeezing with your hand(s) to make it become a squelchy pasty mix. You want to really get rid of the chunky texture that the mince has when you get it from the supermarket and mix it with the rest. (As a guideline: for 500g of beef mince, use 1 egg and a handfull of breadcrumbs. That should bind it nicely). Once mixed, roll walnut-sized balls from the mixture.

By now, the veg in the soup should be nice and tender. The celeriac and the carrot are the sturdiest, so try some pieces of them to see how well you're doing.

Once you're satisfied they're done, add a good dollop of tomato puree (you know, the very concentrated stuff from a tin or a tube) - I added 3 good tablespoons full for a big pan - and use a handblender or any other kind of blender to blend the soup and tomato mix to a smooth paste.

I used a hand-blender which is handy as you don't need to make too much mess (unless you take the blender out of the pan whilst it's still blending) but using a milkshake mixer or a kitchen machine is OK as well. Just blend small portions at a time and put the blended mix in another pan or bowl for the time being. (My mother used to do this with a hand-powered tool that squeezed the soup through a kind of sieve using a handle. Thank god for electric machines I say...)

Season to taste (don't burn yourself on the soup as it keeps its temperature VERY well) and then put back on a very low heat and dump in all the meatballs. They need about 10 minutes to cook through, depending on size.

Then, serve in large bowls with crusty bread and maybe some parsley on top.

And as with almost all soups: it tastes even better the next day if you heat it up!

Bonne Appetit!