On July 4th’s eve, we invited one of my high school friends and his paramour over for dinner. We’d had a craving for gazpacho ever since we’d had a taste of Spain earlier in the week, so I decided to try my hand at making some to kick off our summer evening meal.
Gazpacho is amazingly easy to make. The largest deviation in the recipes I ran across was the inclusion of cubed bread as an ingredient. Now, as an ardent carb lover who has been known to eat half a loaf of warm, freshly baked bread before even leaving the grocery store (don’t even get me started on Irish butter, dear sweet heaven), I failed to see how the addition of half a cubed baguette into soup would be a bad thing. From what I can tell, the bread adds a heartiness to the gazpacho that would otherwise make the chilled soup seem like a runny bloody mary. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I bet a healthy shot of the good stuff would thicken up one’s constitution so as to forgive a gazpacho that’s accidentally ventured towards the category of a beverage. In any event, I highly recommend using a recipe that includes the bread (or try mine, below). Also, instead of the sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar called for in most recipes, I used champagne vinegar to give the gazpacho a crisper, slightly sweeter acidity. The finished product was garlicky, deep in flavor and smacked of summertime.
After the jump, my adapted recipe.
Summer Tomato Gazpacho
4 large, ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks
1/2 wheat baguette, cubed (preferably day old)
1 English seedless cucumber, cut into chunks but not peeled
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and roughly chopped
1/2 medium red onion, roughly chopped
1 cup water
4 tablespoons champagne vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
cilantro for garnish
Equipment required: fine mesh strainer, wooden spoon, food processor or blender
Puree tomatoes in food processor. Strain tomato puree in strainer over a large bowl, pressing solids against the mesh with a wooden spoon to extract as much tomato juice as possible. Discard tomato solids. Pulse cubed bread in food processor until the bread consists of coarse crumbs. Add to tomato juice and stir to make sure the bread is soaked. Puree all additional vegetables until the vegetables resemble a paste and add to tomato and bread mixture. Add water, vinegar, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper and stir to mix well. If consistency is not soup-like, return mixture to food processor in batches and process until smooth. Chill overnight to allow flavors to marinate. Prior to serving, garnish with cilantro.
