I've only had gazpacho once many many years ago. The first slurp was so amazing and momentarily confusing. I hadn't heard of it before and we had just arrived at a family friend's home, so I had no idea what was coming. The soup was deliciously cool and refreshing, but the spice made my lips burn and made my brain wonder "How can this be?!" Even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I never thought about making it until recently.
 |
| you're beautiful, it's true |
For those who aren't familiar with gazpacho, it is a cold vegetable soup. It is very tomato-heavy, so no point in trying this if you don't like tomatoes. There is no cooking involved; the only preparations are chopping, food processing, and chilling. In other words, anyone who knows how to use a knife can make it. It seems like it would make a great picnic food on a hot summer day, since you could just pack it up into a canning jar and stick it in the cooler with everything else. Maybe to make it especially Spanishy, you could make some sangria at the same time. The idea for that is similar (except with alcohol and fruit): chop and chill overnight.
I read a handful of recipes (including one by Ina Garten and another by Alton Brown) for general guidelines. The base is Ina's but there are a few add-ins that were inspired by other recipes. As with everything else in life, there are a billion different versions of gazpacho.
First, seed and dice
- 2 red peppers (seeded)
- 1 cucumber (seeded)
- a bit over half a pound of tomatoes (seeded)
- 1/4 to 1/2 of a red onion
- one seeded jalapeno (optional...or optionally, add more!)
Mix in
- three minced cloves of garlic
- 3 cups of tomato juice
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1-2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 1-2 tablespoons chopped green onions
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 or 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
If you want it to be chunky, then you are done. If you want it a bit smoother, unleash your food processor or hand blender. You want to be very careful to not overblend!! What I did is poured 2 cups of the gazpacho into a separate container and then pulsed the hand blender in it a couple times. I didn't want to lose all the texture of the vegetables. Then, I returned the slightly smoother soup to the large container and repeated the process a couple times until the gazpacho reached the consistency I desired. The reason I separated the soup that I wanted to blend was so that I did not accidentally overblend the entire container of soup. Then I would just cry.
Anyway, the last step is to chill the gazpacho for at least a few hours so that the flavors can marry. Several sources online suggest a full day of chilling, so make this the night before you want to consume it.
Some fresh cilantro would be great either mixed into the drink or garnishing the soup. Some other garnishes are basil, plain yogurt, parsley, and chives. If you want to be really fancy, use some lobster meat.
 |
| parsley is just chillin. you should get a cup of gazpacho and do the same. |
Optionally, add some sleeping pills. In Spanish class in undergrad, we watched a movie (Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown) in which the lead actress made gazpacho with sleeping pills because she was having a hard time sleeping. The sleep-inducing soup came in handy the next day when the police showed up for some reason that I don't remember. She casually offered them gazpacho, the policemen all drank some, they passed out, and the woman made her escape. Obviously, it would be best to keep some spiked gazpacho around in case of emergencies. I just read the wikipedia page for the movie, and apparently the only thing I remember about the movie is the sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho. Seems about right.