Gazpacho is the perfect chilled summer soup to cool you off and help you get your vitamins!
This cool soup takes me back to my adolescence. My mother used to make it for us on hot summer days. She generally included hacked kalamata olives for me since I'm fixated. Gazpacho is a Spanish dish and more often than not has a tomato base. I've seen it done in different diverse ways, yet I don't go amiss a lot from the formula I grew up with. My mother made a couple changes here and there, and after that I made my own particular changes, however it's fundamentally the same as the first in Robert Carrier's exemplary cookbook Great Dishes of the World. Our family truly adores garlic, so more garlic is included into our own, actually 🙂
In case you're after all other options have been exhausted, you can eat it on the day you make it (simply ensure it's COLD, and I propose including a solid shape of ice into every dish before serving). It improves to me when you abandon it overnight, be that as it may.
In case you're having visitors over, I propose putting the slashed veggies in little dishes so they can embellish the soup themselves. On the off chance that you simply need to get on with eating, there's nothing amiss with including the cleaved veggies into the soup and afterward refrigerating it all. See the veggies in the photos? Those were hurled into the rest of the soup directly after the photographs were taken 🙂 Just ensure you don't throw the bread garnishes in early unless you need a soaked wreckage!
Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: Spanish
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
A chilled Spanish soup. Makes an excellent appetizer or light summer meal.
INGREDIENTS
- 6 medium tomatoes
- 5 cloves garlic, divided
- 1 green pepper
- 1 cucumber
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 Spanish onion
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 cups tomato juice
- Salt & pepper, to taste (use cayenne pepper if desired)
- Kalamata olives, to taste (optional)
- 2 slices bread
- 1 tablespoon butter
- Ice (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Roughly chop the tomatoes and add them to a blender along with four cloves of the garlic (mince the garlic then add it to the blender). Blend until smooth (you may have to pack the tomatoes down to get the blender going). Transfer to a pot or large bowl.
- Roughly chop half the cucumber, the whole onion, and half the pepper. Add to the blender along with the olive oil, lemon juice, and tomato juice. Blend until smooth then pour it into the container with the blended tomatoes and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste. Give it a stir and put it in the fridge. You can either chill it for a couple of hours or chill it overnight.
- You have two options regarding the remaining veggies. If you're planning on adding the chopped veggies directly into the soup, I suggest chopping them right away and adding them to the soup base. If you want to serve them in little bowls like I have pictured, I suggest chopping them closer to the time you're going to serve the soup. I removed the pits from the kalamata olives and cut them into small pieces.
- To make the croutons, cut bread into desired size croutons and fry with the butter. Cook on medium heat stirring occasionally until the croutons are browned (approx. 10 minutes). I suggest adding the remaining clove of garlic (mince it) a minute or two before the croutons are done so you don't burn it. Make the croutons close to the time you want to serve the soup.
- Serve the gazpacho chilled. If desired, add an ice cube to each bowl right before serving it. Garnish with the remaining chopped vegetables (if you didn't add them to the soup already) and the croutons.
NOTES
Adapted from Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World.
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