Roasted Red Pepper /Tomato Bisque with Smoked Gouda Cheese

We have this small coffee/sandwich shop at work where they serve this soup. I love it..love it...love it.....for the longest time I wanted to recreate this recipe at home. Until now I used to buy a two cartons of organic roasted red pepper soup, a can of organic tomato bisque and used to combine both with shredded Gouda cheese. Then I would cook it until the consistency and taste of the soup at work.
(Thank you Betty M. for often picking these items for me from Trader's Joe). The taste was pretty close to the soup from the coffee shop.
Yet, I still had this burning desire of cooking this soup at home, so I started searching the web. Believe it or not, there are not too many recipes for this soup on the web. I found something very close to it and modified it based on my memory of taste of the soup that my palate so loves.
So here it is my friends....my very own modified recipe for the Roasted Red pepper/Tomato Bisque with Smoked Gouda cheese. And yes, of course, more pictures still to be posted of this creation in future..so keep checking...and Enjoy :)

Makes 8-10 servings


Ingredients:


6 large red bell peppers

3 fresh Pablano peppers or 2 green peppers

6 table spoons olive oil divided in to half

3-4 bay leaves

8-10 baby carrots, diced

3 tablespoons butter

1 large red onion diced

1 large yellow onion diced

8 cloves of garlic

1" peeled ginger root

6 tablespoons flour

1.5 quart vegetable broth

1 (28-ounce) can whole, peeled tomatoes (with liquid), roughly chopped

1 cup of tomato puree or paste

6-7 table spoon of Marsala wine

5 tsp. sweet paprika

Cayenne pepper if desire heat to taste

1 tsp of white pepper

4 tsp. Sugar

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp oregano

1 cups of water

8 oz. smoked Gouda cheese shredded

Salt and black pepper to taste

1/2 cup heavy cream or sour cream (optional or can reduce the amount to 1/4 cup)


Method:


• Cut the stems out of peppers and cut them in halves.

• Take out all the seeds

• Cut them in to wedges; toss them with 3 table spoon of olive oil in a roasting pan just large enough to hold them in a single layer.

• Slide them in 450 degrees heated oven for 15 min and then broil them for 15 min or until the peppers are charred browned, stir them in between.

• If you use fresh tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes, like I did, you can broil the tomatoes in the oven as well. Brush them with olive oil before putting them in oven. I had the peppers on top rack and the tomatoes in the bottom and then later switched them for little bit during last 5 min of broiling. The skin will come off very easily by doing this vs boiling them.

• Grind Onions, carrots, ginger and garlic in the food processor.

• In a medium saucepan, melt butter, add remaining 3 table spoon of olive oil Add bay leaves and saute the onion, carrot and garlic on medium heat.

• Once they begin to brown, discard the bay leaves, sprinkle flour over all the veggies and cook on low for another minute or until flour is well mixed.

• Add the stock, canned or fresh tomatoes and tomato paste, Marsala wine, and roasted peppers and bring to a boil.

• Lower the soup to medium-low and allow it to cook just above a simmer until the veggies are tender.

• Use a hand blender and partially puree the soup (you still want some chunks) - you can also do this in a blender or food processor using all the chunky part of the soup and pureeing then adding back to the saucepan, but it is easier with hand blender, add some water if consistency too thick.

• Add shredded Gouda cheese and cook until cheese is melted.

• Season the bisque with paprika, cayenne (optional), oregano, basil, white pepper, black pepper and salt.

• Whisk in sour cream or heavy cream and just heat through; do not let boil.




Recipe modified by Surekha from a recipe from http://www.grouprecipes.com/
Photograph By Surekha