Chilled Tomato Soup with Tabasco Granita

A chilled yellow cherry tomato soup served with a spicy Tabasco-red-tomato granita, basil-cilantro oil and brioche croutons.

Ingredients

1 package (10.5 oz)		Red Cherry Tomatoes (for Tabasco Granita)
¾ C		Water (for granita)
3 Tbsp	45 ml	Sugar
1½ Tbsp	23 ml	Tabasco Sauce
1 Tbsp	15 ml	Basil, roughly chopped (for granita)
3 packages (10.5 oz ea.)		Yellow Cherry Tomatoes, halved (for soup)
¼ C		Water (for soup)
1 Tbsp	15 ml	Olive Oil (for soup)
½ tsp	2.5 ml	Salt
⅛ tsp	0.6 ml	freshly ground Black Pepper
¼ C		Olive Oil (for Basil-Cilantro Oil)
1 Tbsp	15 ml	chopped Basil (for oil)
1½ Tbsp	23 ml	Cilantro (for oil)
2 to 3 slices		stale Brioche, cut into small cubes (for croutons)
1 Tbsp	15 ml	Basil-Cilantro Oil, plus more as needed (for croutons)
¼ tsp	1.3 ml	Salt (for croutons)

Wash the red cherry tomatoes and then process them in a food processor or blender until completely smooth. Set aside.
Combine the water, sugar and Tabasco Sauce in a sauce pan and bring to simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes (or until the sugar is completely dissolved if any remains undissolved). Remove the syrup from the heat and stir in the basil. Let the basil steep in the syrup for 20 minutes.
Strain the red cherry tomato puree into a bowl, making sure to get as much liquid through as possible. We're not trying to get a clear juice here, just to remove the seeds and any solid bits of pulp and skin. Next, strain the syrup into the same bowl to remove the basil.
Stir the syrup into the tomato puree until well combined. Cover the bowl and put in the freezer.
Stir the granita every 30 minutes as it freezes to prevent it from becoming one giant block of ice. As it becomes more frozen, you can rake at the ice crystals with a fork.

Combine the halved yellow cherry tomatoes, water, olive oil and salt in a pot and bring to a simmer.
Continue to simmer until the tomatoes have released all their juices and the liquid has started to thicken. Stir in the black pepper.
Carefully pour the soup into a blender and puree until smooth. Transfer the soup to the refrigerator and thoroughly chill.

Combine the olive oil and herbs in a blender and blend until the herbs are as fine and the mixture as homogenous as possible.
Transfer the oil to a small pot and bring to a simmer for 1 minute.
Strain the oil through a coffee filter to remove any solids. You can gently squeeze the filter a bit to encourage the oil to move through it, but, unlike the tomatoes above, don't press the herbs down. That will result in a murky oil, which isn't what we want here.
Once the oil has been strained, transfer it to a squeeze bottle.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.
If your brioche isn't stale, go ahead and dry it out for 20 to 30 minutes in a 200 degree F oven.
Once you have your stale or dried out brioche, toss it with the basil-cilantro oil and the salt. Spread the cubes out on a parchment-lined baking sheet and put in the 200 degree oven for about 20 minutes, stirring and flipping over the croutons half way through. If, after the 20 minutes, the cubes haven't browned, increase the oven's heat to 300 degrees F and continue to toast until the croutons are crisp and browned.
Remove the croutons from the oven and let cool completely.

Put your bowls or amuse-bouche spoons in the refrigerator to chill them.
Once chilled, pour the soup into the bowl or spoon. You can store them in the fridge this way until you are ready to serve them.
Just before serving, spoon some of the granita over the soup (you may need to rake up the ice crystals again with a fork), drizzle some of the basil-cilantro oil over top and garnish with croutons.
Serve immediately.