The title “Orange Soup” refers more to the color of this remarkable dish than to the contents, although orange as a flavor does enter into the mix. This is a soup that can only be made at the end of the summer when the special ingredients can be assembled. We have eaten it hot, but it could probably be eaten cold with a dollop of sour cream on top. Think of it as orange borscht.
From your local farm stand you need to collect yellow or orange tomatoes, striped or yellow beets, and red/orange peppers. With this assortment, and a few other ingredients, what results is a rich soup with a slightly offbeat flavor. Since the soup will be pureed, the ingredients can be chopped coarsely.
Hungarian style peppers are a recent discovery. I saw some beautiful small yellow/red/pale green peppers and asked if they were spicy. The farmer said, “Not really.” But apparently she was not that familiar with this species, because I chopped up a whole pepper and dumped it into our dinner one night, and it was too hot for us to eat. When I asked a Hungarian friend about the peppers, she said that a quarter of one would have been more than enough. But in a whole pot of soup, one small pepper is probably just about right.
Ingredients
6 medium to large yellow and/or orange tomatoes, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 Tbsp butter or vegetable oil
4 medium striped or yellow beets
3 yellow/orange peppers, chopped
1 small yellow/red Hungarian style pepper
4-6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (depending on how much juice the tomatoes give off)
3/4 cup orange juice, or 2 tablespoons condensed frozen orange juice
Directions
1. Cook beets until just tender, then slip off outer skin and chop beets.
2. Saute onion in butter or vegetable oil until soft,
3. Add peppers and cook until soft.
4. Add tomatoes, beets, stock, and orange juice. Cook 30 minutes and puree.
