Gazpacho

[billyruff]

take the basic's, chop into a fine brunoise,add sherry vin and xtra virgin.form into rounds on the plate and wrap with smoked salmon.drizzle with basil and spice oils.throw in some roasted garlic crostini.

Gaspacho with a twist. I love summer food!!!

[torakris]

Am I the only one who adds bread to my gazpacho? I think that without it the soup is too watery. I also don't like it with garlic or hot peppers.

Here's my recipe

I prefer fresh croutons with mine, I like the bite they give and lots of garlic please!

[ruthcooks]

I like a bit of sweetness added to many tomato dishes, so I make a Gazpacho with fresh orange sections, juice and zest, and sweeten it further to taste with concentrated frozen orange juice. Half pureed and half diced vine-ripe tomatoes, shallots or scallions, garlic, oil, vinegar, lots of diced cucumber and salt, only a whisper of cayenne. The cucumber-tomato-orange combination is so refreshing.

[marlena spieler]

As soon as the temp climbs and the tomatoes ripen, i'm makin gazpacho. bread, no bread, cukes no cukes, hit of chile or gazpacho for wimps, its there for every night of the week until the heatwave lifts...........

here is a light one without bread but with a hit of both dried coriander and cilantro.......i ran it in my san francisco chronicle column Roving Feasts, about 2 weeks ago. to access it visit:

http://marlenaspieler.com and click on to July 30, 2003 or go directly to sfgate.com and navigate your way to the wednesday food section archives, and again, find your way to july 30th.

actually, i'm looking for something to make for sunday lunch guests tomorrow.....gazpacho sounds just the thing. i'm also thinking of doing a porchetta just for the hell of it, served with wedges of raw fennel they way they do in the mountains of sardinia. just a though..........

[Jason Perlow]

BTW, welcome Marlena, its great to have you here.

[marlena spieler]

thanks, Jason! its good to be here.

after yesterdays gazpacho posting, our gazpacho-making chez spieler has cranked itself up a notch. today i've got italians coming to lunch and my menu has veered its way through the med as usual, but with temps hovering around a hundred in merry ol england, we're starting with gazpacho of course. got a good deal on cucumbers yesterday at the shops so i might be heading in a very cucumbered direction, come to think about it, maybe i'll go all tzadziki-ish instead.

menu so far: little bowl of appetizer marinated maroccan-ish carrots, the cucumber gazpacho/tzadziki, porchetta-ish/souvlaki-ish pork pieces with a thessalonika-style pilaff, arugula salad with truffled vinaigrette or a big cypriot salad, maybe green beans with tomatoes and olive oil and cumin, and a light dessert of elderflower gelee with blackberries that I picked last night from my neighbourhood blackberry patch. Then, a cheeseboard of welsh goat cheese, basque sheep cheese, and swiss mountain cheese with mebrillo and thin slices of pain poilane.

god i love to cook.

lugging shopping home is another thing though. which reminds me that one day not long ago, my husband was climbing the hill home after shopping in the once a month farmers market. he was struggling with his bags full of vegetables when a little old lady sided up to him and said: "here, dear, let me help you with your heavy bags. oh, don't you wish that we didn't have to eat? then we wouldn't need to do this!"

does that break your heart of what...........

[AlexP]

Thinking about all the gazpacho that I have eaten in Spain, I realized that I only eat gazpacho at home. I do not think I have ever ordered gazpacho in restaurants... Anyway, the recipe that I follow is similar to my mother's: tomatoes, green bell pepper, cucumber, onion, garlic, EVOO, vinegar, salt and pepper. We never use bread, although traditional recipes called for it. I found that my wife enjoys balsamic vinegar more than Sherry Vinegar for this soup, so I have been using balsamic (I hope that my father does not find out )

I have enjoyed roasting the veggies once in a while. Let them cool and then chop. The taste is milder and the color is pretty good.

We use the blender and keep some chopped veggies for garnish, sometimes with add croutons as well.

Although there are traditional recipes for this great soup, I do not think there is a "right" recipe. I enjoy all the precedent comments.

Alex

[russ parsons]

i'd never used bread in my gazpacho either until i was testing recipes for a review of janet mendel's "my kitchen in spain" last year. there is something to be said for following a recipe as written every once in a while. it notonly called for bread, but a lot of it. basically, puree soaked bread and garlic in the blender. add chopped tomatoes and puree. with the machine running, add olive oil until the color changes from red to brick-orange. add sherry vinegar and some water to taste/thin. salt. garnish with diced cucumbers, peppers, croutons, etc. (i really like a little blob of goat cheese). adding the bread gives a really voluptuous texture. i now serve gazpacho at least once a week.

[NVNVGirl]

I am with Spoonful's taste....Thomas Keller's gazpacho from the French Laundry Cookbook is awesome! I sometimes serve it as gazpacho shooters....peel cucumbers, slice bottom so that it's flat, hollow out the center and serve individual shooters as appetizers. Great thread....never realized there were SO MANY variations! Seana

[Jaymes]

Am I the only one who adds bread to my gazpacho? I think that without it the soup is too watery. I also don't like it with garlic or hot peppers.

Here's my recipe

G -

Made your gazpacho yesterday and wanted to tell you that it was just wonderful.

I went to the farmer's market and got beautiful fresh everything.

And then I prepared it just as you said - bread, veggies, oil, Sherry vinegar - whirled around in the blender until smooth and creamy.

The bread does give the liquid a perfect consistancy, and maybe even cuts a little of the acid.

And then, once I had that sublime "soup," added all of the crunchy tomatoes, cukes, onions, bell peppers, croutons -

Really, really delicious.

Too bad we here in Texas are nearing the end of the summer tomato season (gets too hot about now).

But on the other hand, we've been eating heirlooms since early May. And the fall tomatoes will begin arriving in the farmer's markets soon.

So don't feel TOO sorry for me.

[fredbram]

When I want a change of pace from more traditional gazpachos I start with jicama, cukes, yellow peppers of one sort or another, onion and green or gold tomatoes. Add sherry vinegar, evoo, buttermilk and seasonings (as hot as you want it or not). I usually puree about half of it and add the rest chopped.

[MissAmy]

I'm coming to the masters of eGullet for help. A friend of my aunt's was just hospitalized for a pretty invasive surgery, and is now at home recovering. We've made her and her family a couple of things to have around, and she has requested a "white gazpacho" without tomato, that she ate once at a restaurant. I'd like to create something similar and would love all of your input. At a spa I worked in, we made one with green grapes and cucumber, but it was pretty spicy and rich and I don't know if she can handle it at this point. Really what I'm looking for is something cold, refreshing, and nutritous. Not too spicy.

Any input would be HIGHY appreciated.

[rooftop1000]

Isnt the "original" white gazpacho a combination of cucumber, bread, almonds and seasonings like vinager, oil, peppers and scallion?

almost like a liquid bread salad. Me thinks thats it

tracey

[newguy]

i've had a white gazpacho with cucumbers, grapes, a little garlic and almonds. puree everything and make it cold. refreshing and delicious and will supply a little nutrition with the grapes and nuts too.

[snowangel]

There's a wonderful recipe for White Gazpacho right over in RecipeGullet!

[Big Country]

I love white gazpacho in the summer. It get really hot here in KC. I just use green grapes, cucumbers, raw almonds (green alonds if availible), a little garlic, and sourdough that has been soaked in cold water. Don't toast the almonds or it will over power the soup. There is protein in the almonds and it is a refreshing dish to sip on. I hope that she is feeling better soon.

[moosnsqrl]

I love white gazpacho in the summer.  It get really hot here in KC.  I just use green grapes, cucumbers, raw almonds (green alonds if availible),  a little garlic, and sourdough that has been soaked in cold water.  Don't toast the almonds or it will over power the soup.  There is protein in the almonds and it is a refreshing dish to sip on.  I hope that she is feeling better soon.

←

I've been subjected to the "Big" guy's white gazpacho and trust me, it will cure almost anything that ails you (except, perhaps, for over indulgence). Sante'

[MissAmy]

Thank you so much, everyone. I'll just use the recipe from RecipeGullet, and let ya'll know how it turns you. Thanks again!

[pedro]

What you're looking for is named ajoblanco. The recipe in the RecipeGullet is a good recipe for it.

[McDuff]

Whole bunch of recipes for different gazpachos in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, which is also a very good read.

[ludja]

I had a very interesting mango gazpacho last summer at the restaurant at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe.

It was a first course dish and not overly sweet. Some included flavors were cilantro, chile, lime. I would love to recreate this but am not sure if I remember it well enough to put it all together. I think there was also cucumber and maybe red bell pepper in it. The soup was served cold.

Has anyone tried something like this?

[MissAmy]

A friend of mine who works at the spa I used to work at called me and gave me the recipe for a new one they are doing, and I ended up using that as I had all the stuff and didn't have any white bread. (I don't really eat white bread at home anyway, so buying a whole loaf of it to use just a little bit seemed wasteful.)

So anyway, the one I ended up going with had cucumbers, grapes, cream cheese, yoghurt, slivered almonds, rice wine vinegar, salt, and dill weed. The recipe calls for Tobasco, which would have been REALLY good, but I left it out because the lady I made it for can't have spicy. Even without the Tobasco, the soup was OUTSTANDING, if I do say so myself.

I really want to start playing around with gazpachos, or ajoblanco. I'm slowing discovering how good they all are, and can't wait to experiment with some other types.

[UnConundrum]

You can find a great recipe I pulled from Gourmet here.. We really enjoyed it.

[Dave Hatfield]

Summer's here & that means its time for Gazpacho. My favorite summer soup.

Recipies abound, but variety is nice. Even though I found three resipies in Recipe Gullet and a few on the recent white gazpacho thread and I'm sure there are more in the archives I would still like to hear of everyones favorite variation.

To get the ball rolling I've put my current favorite recipe on ITT-S so as not to clutter up the forum too much.

Comments on authenticity might be interesting as well.

[jsolomon]

No stale bread or garlic in your recipe... do you like it better that way?

I generally like mine with less stock, but stale bread, garlic, and olive oil. The bread keeps the things like tomato guts and cucumber guts from over-hydrating the soup, and the garlic and olive oil really make it smile.

I love gazpacho, and I think the world can always do with another recipe.