Gazpacho is a cold soup made with raw salad vegetables and delicious on a hot summer’s day. In Spain I would simply have liquidised all the vegetables and then passed them through a fairly fine sieve. I would also have used a kilo of over ripe tomatoes but that is more difficult in the UK so I have adapted to make a very tasty English version of the Spanish classic.
Ingredients:
- I litre carton of good quality tomato juice (cold from fridge)
- 1 large and 1 small green peppers – I peel them with a potato peeler to save having to sieve them. Don’t forget to remove the seeds etc.
- About 3/4 of a cucumber or to taste – peeled
- 1 regular sized clove garlic
- 1 spring onion – just the white part. or a small piece of a white onion
- white bread, about 50 grms.
- salt, olive oil and vinegar
Method: Liquidise all the vegetables together with the tomato juice until smooth. I use the veg straight from the fridge. Then add salt, olive oil and vinegar to taste, add the bread (no crusts unless they are very soft), Blend everything together and hey presto we have gazpacho.
Notes: Any of the above quantities can be modified to your own taste. If you grow your own or can buy, maybe in a farmers market, nice ripe tomatoes they will without a doubt make a superior soup but will need to be sieved. In Spain the white bread used would be pan de barra (French loaf), usually a piece of stale bread from the day before which would be soaked in water, crust removed, then squeezed to remove liquid. If the soup is for a special occasion it is often served with accompanying small diced vegetables – green pepper, fresh tomato, cucumber and some small croutons. These would be served in dishes and sprinkled on top of the soup. Serve very cold in bowls.