Spicy tomato soup with basil oil

Begin by making the basil oil. Place the basil leaves and olive oil into a saucepan and heat to 80°C. Pour into a blender, blend for 1–2 minutes then pass through a fine sieve. The oil can be straight from the blender, or for a clear green oil, pass again through a double layer of muslin cloth or a coffee filter overnight in the fridge

For the dehydrated tomatoes, weigh out 2kg of the tomatoes and quarter them (set aside the remaining 1kg). Season with salt and pepper and place in a dehydrator for 24 hours. If you don't have a dehydrator, you can cook them at 80°C in a fan-assisted oven for 4 hours

To make the soup, sweat the onions and garlic in the olive oil with a pinch of salt, ensuring the onions do not colour in the pan. While this is happening, chop the remaining 1kg tomatoes

Add the bay leaf, thyme and chilli, cook for a further 3 minutes then add the peppers, basil, chopped tomatoes and dehydrated tomatoes

Cook out for an hour, stirring from time to time and adding vegetable stock to make sure it doesn't dry out – you need enough liquid to simmer away nicely. The idea is to soften the ingredients in the pan and really concentrate the final flavour

While the soup is simmering away, make the tomato concasse. Cut the remaining 4 fresh plum tomatoes into a fine dice and set aside, or create a classic concasse by making a shallow cross cut at the end of the tomato and remove the core at the opposite end. Lower gently into the boiling water then plunge directly into iced water after 15–20 seconds – as soon as the skin starts to come away from the flesh

Strain the tomatoes and remove the skin before cutting the tomatoes into quarters lengthways. Remove the seeds and dice into 0.5cm pieces, season with a little salt and pepper and set aside

When the soup is ready, transfer the soup to high-powered blender and blitz until super smooth, adjusting the consistency with a little extra vegetable stock and seasoning to taste if required. Pass through a fine strainer into and new saucepan to reheat

To serve, pour some soup into each bowl and garnish with the concasse, basil oil, a few drops of balsamic and some basil leaves