Spaniards get it: When it´s so hot, and your chocolate has melted in the back pocket of your jeans, nothing tastes better than an ice-cold gazpacho. It satisfies hunger, quenches thirst, and provides your body with the necessary vitamins and salt.
Now that it’s also so hot more northerly in Europe, we give you the recipe for a delicious Andalucian gazpacho here. This way you bring a little bit of Spain into your home.
This famous Spanish cold tomato soup is easy to prepare yourself. All you need is a good mortar, blender, or food processor. The gazpacho that you can buy in cartons in the supermarket often tastes great, but how nice is it to serve your homemade gazpacho?
Use overripe tomatoes
The secret to a good gazpacho is in the tomato. Use only overripe, dark red tomatoes. Besides that, it doesn’t matter how much of each ingredient you grind in the food processor. Experiment a bit with the amount of sherry or white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar and olive oil you use.
Ingredients for about 4 servings:
1 kg ripe tomatoes, skinned and seed removed
1/2 cucumber, cut into pieces
1 green/red bell pepper, diced
3-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped to taste
half an onion, finely chopped to taste
500 grams of breadcrumbs from slices of soaked old white bread
White wine or sherry vinegar to taste (2 tablespoons)
Extra Virgin olive oil to taste (6 tablespoons)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Sugar to taste
Method
Place the tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, garlic, onion, and bread in a blender and make a smooth, thick soup. Then add oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and possibly sugar to taste. Put the whole thing in the fridge for a while and serve in soup bowls or glasses.
Garnish
It is nice to serve finely chopped cucumber, bell pepper, onion, hard-boiled egg, and tuna with the gazpacho. You can add some or all these ingredients to the soup to taste. Another tasty option is to add pieces of ripe melon. If it is very hot outside, you can also put ice cubes in it.
Top tip
To easily peel the tomatoes, cut a cross in the skin and place them in boiling water for 10 seconds. Then the skin quickly peels off. If you find that too much hassle, you can also put the tomatoes with skin in the food processor.
Different gazpacho variants
If you order gazpacho in a restaurant or bar in Andalucia, it can taste different every time. Sometimes you taste more green pepper, other times the soup is thicker in texture. This is because most cooks do not work with fixed quantities and ingredients, but use what is available. Moreover, everyone has their recipe for gazpacho.
Sometimes there are red, sweeter bell peppers and no green ones. One adds onion, the other doesn’t. Thicker varieties such as ‘salmorejo’ or ‘porra’ often use more breadcrumbs, so that the soup is much thicker and also forms more of a dish than a refreshing ‘drink’.
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Salmorejo: gazpacho mixed with bread
- Porra Antequerana: about the same but with dried bread, which makes the soup thicker
- Ajoblanco: Also known as white gazpacho. This is a mixture of bread, garlic, water, olive oil, salt, and ground almonds
- Green gazpacho: variant with green pepper, cucumber, celery, boiled peas, garlic, onion, and green chili pepper. Mixed with olive oil and white wine vinegar
- Gazpacho manchego: is served hot and is a stew with about the same ingredients and with meat
Batch make
It is useful to make a lot of gazpacho at once. Then pour the soup into bottles and have a glass whenever you feel like it.
Origin of gazpacho
The soup originated in the province of Seville and was the meal of the farm workers. They took the ingredients in a wooden mortar and crushed them and mixed them on the spot with some oil, salt, vinegar, and bread. It is a healthy and at the same time nutritious dish that is also very refreshing at high temperatures.
Did you know…
Every year on July 21, Gazpacho Day (Día del Gazpacho) is celebrated worldwide. Gazpacho is one of the most recognised cold soups of the Mediterranean diet. That’s why gazpacho is an essential summer recipe. So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of this recipe for gazpacho and ¡Que aproveche!
