I’m afraid to say that gazpacho is one of the few things
that I have never particularly liked my mother’s version of, and there is one
reason for that. It’s because she never adds the bread. There’s fair reason for
this, when I was a young’un I couldn’t eat gluten until I was at least 8 years
old, and then about 8 years ago my father found out he is also intolerant to
it, so she’s been fairly restricted. Unfortunately, it is something that you
cannot do without in this recipe. In fact, if you take gazpacho to its original
form it didn’t even contain tomatoes and was a soup made from bread, oil and
garlic.
I didn’t actually have stale bread, but I left it out in the
sun for a bit and that worked beautifully. I must say for my first attempt at
gazpacho I’m blooming chuffed! Eating it out in the sun took me right back to
family holidays in Spain and my sister and I ordering it at every meal (oh and
Spanish Housemate approved so what more can I ask for!?)
Ingredients
Approx. 1kg very ripe tomatoes
2/3 large cucumber
3 cloves of garlic
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 thick slice stale crusty bread
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Sherry or Red Wine Vinegar
Salt
You will need a hand blender or food processor for this.
Soak the bread in a bowl of cold water and put aside.
Chop the peppers and place into a large bowl or if you have a food processor the bowl of that. Peel the
cucumber and chop roughly, add to bowl. Crush the garlic into the chopped veg
(or if you don’t have a garlic crusher just chop finely).
Core the tomatoes; this is just taking out the hard white
bit in the middle. You can usually cut in half and pull it out with your
fingers, or cut into quarters if struggling. You only need to do this if using big
tomatoes, cherry or plum will be fine as they are. Roughly chop the tomatoes and add to the bowl.Once the bread has been soaking for about 20 minutes,
squeeze out the water and add in pieces to the bowl.
Add a good couple of glugs
of olive oil and blend until smooth. Once smooth, taste and add salt and
vinegar as needed. Then push through a sieve until you can’t get any more
liquid out.
Chill before serving for at least an hour.
Serve with chopped pieces of cucumber, peppers, olives,
croutons, boiled egg, serrano ham…it’s your choice, and don't forget a good drizzle of olive oil.
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