A cocktail of gazpachos

 

For me gazpacho is summer in a glass and I make my Go To Tomato Gazpacho time and time again through the summer when tomatoes are sweet and juicy sometimes with yellow tomatoes to create a sunshine golden version and sometimes with red to be classic.  Gazpacho is a liquid salad so I am never very precise with quantities and adding bread is a personal preference – I like to as i like the creamier emulsified texture. I adore the very creamy Spanish “Salmorejo” which is a red tomato gazpacho with a higher amount of bread in it.  As the method is really only about blending its really all about the sweetest ripest ingredients and thats why going to the market yields the best results. Somehow the little cucumbers are sweeter, the onions stronger and the tomatoes richer in flavour.  Here you have a trio of new gazpacho recipes to try:

Avocado & Cucumber Gazpacho

Watermelon Gazpacho

Beetroot Gazpacho 

 

Gadgets & Gizmos

A good blender is fairly important because the better your blender the more finely it blends everything and you probably dont need to sieve the result.  Thats important because the goodness of the tomato lycopenes are to be found just beneath the skin plus of course the skin is fibre.  However the soup does need to have a certain elegance and creaminess and not be a mouthful of pips and skins.  I distinctly remember having a bowl of tomato soup as a child in a hippy wholefood cafe when they had not got this right – I soldiered on eating it but the texture was “all prickly” as I think I told them. 

The other great trick is to use a juicer if you have one to make cucumber juice and add this in to the gazpachos as the liquid component.  

How To

The method here is really one of blending so in this sense there is no real method.  I like to produce lighter thinner gazpachos for starters and thicker ones if they are my main meal served with some good bread.  I do like to try and make mine emulsify so that involves using good stale white bread and some good olive oil too. 

Avocado & Cucumber Gazpacho Ingredients

serves two large bowls or four glasses

• 4 little sweet cucumbers peeled (the skin is pretty tough and bitter usually) – reserve some to dice as a garnish
• 1 or 2 garlic cloves according to taste
• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 small sweet white onion or a bunch of spring onions roughly chopepd
• 1 bunch of coriander (I’m a coriander freak but not everybody is) or the leaves , because the stalks are “woody” of 1 bunch of mint. Reserve some leaves for garnish
• 150-200ml of “kefir” or “lapte de batut” (drinking yoghurt).  These traditional buttermilks are rich in good bacteria

This gazpacho does not contain any bread. 

Watermelon Gazpacho Ingredients

A beautiful late summer gazpacho that is very refreshing.  Here it turned out a pale orange colour made with yellow tomatoes. 

• 100g slightly stale good crusty white bread, soaked in cold water for 20 mins
• 400 g very ripe yellow tomatoes, diced with the stalk and tough parts cut out and deseeded
• 400g watermelon flesh cut into big chunks
• 1 medium long cucumber, peeled and diced or 4 small cucumbers peeled
• 1 sweet onion preferably white but red onions are also great
• 1 clove of garlic
• 150ml extra virgin olive oil

Beetroot Gazpacho Ingredients

This makes 4 bowls and 8 glasses.  I can never make small quantities.  It actually improves in flavour if left 1 day in the fridge. 

• 100g slightly stale good crusty white bread, soaked in cold water for 20 mins
• 800g very ripe tomatoes, diced with the stalk and tough parts cut out and deseeded
• 200g raw beetroot, peeled and cut into cubes roughly
• 1 ripe red pepper and 1 green pepper, de-seeded and diced(optional – if you find them in the market include them)
• 1 medium long cucumber, peeled and diced or 4 small cucumbers peeled
• 1 sweet onion preferably white but red onions are also great
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 150ml extra virgin olive oil
• Salt, and freshly ground pepper to taste
• If your tomatoes are not really ripe (and you shouldn’t be making this if that is the case) then ading 1 tsp of organic veggie stock is good.  I like the Swiss “Marigold” brand.

Another great addition is “parsley root” if I can find it at the market.  It adds that slightly aniseedy taste and sweetness and is a powerhouse of vitamins.