Tortilla Soup

1 large onion, cut into chunks
3 large tomatoes
3 garlic cloves, peeled
4tbsp olive oil
1 litre/1&3/4 pints chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6x1day old tortillas
Oil for shallow frying
2 fresh red or green chillies, seeded and chopped
To Serve:
Chopped avocado
Sour cream
Lime wedges

Put the onion chunks, tomatoes, and garlic cloves in a baking dish and roast in a preheated oven at 180/350 for 15-20 min, until the vegetables are soft and the tomato skins are beginning to look black and charred. Skin the tomatoes and puree with onions and garlic in a blender or food processor.
Heat 2 tbsp of the oil and sauté the puree mixture for a few minutes. Simmer until it is thick and reduced. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, season with salt and pepper and simmer, covered for 15-20 minutes.
Cut the tortillas into thin strips and shallow fry in some oil until golden brown. Drain on some absorbent kitchen paper and then add to the soup. Simmer gently for a further 5 min.
Fry the chillies in the remaining oil in a small frying pan until crisp. Serve the soup garnished with the fried chilli, some of the chopped avocado, sour cream and lime wedges.

This was from a book called Essential Mexican Cookery . This is a good basic beginner book for Mexican cooking. The recipes don’t call for any ingredients that are terribly hard to find, and I get the feeling that it is more of an overview of Mexican cooking. If you’ve never tried Mexican cooking before, this book is definitely non-threatening. Also, I have really enjoyed the dishes I’ve made from it. I don’t know if they are the most authentic or not, but they have been consistently tasty.

This soup was lovely. The crispy bits of tortilla soak up all the soup and make it feel really hearty, and the roasting of the vegetables gives it a wonderful depth of flavor. I totally loved this. I had tortilla soup in a restaurant once and it was more of a clear broth type soup, where as this is more of a thick hearty one. I think both work for me.