(This title may be the worst play-on-words I've yet attempted.)
When the entire country finds itself strangled by a heat wave, what's a girl to do for lunch?
A giant bowl of gazpacho, that's what.
Now, I don't make gazpacho with bread, which I thought meant I wasn't adhering to tradition. Just now, however, a friend who has been living in Spain for a year told me that, while of course it depends whom you ask and where you are, gazpacho is the vegetable soup, and salmorejo is the bread version. So I guess I'm not as much of a renegade as I thought!
I found some gorgeous (actually, ugly as sin, but beautifully ripe and wonderful) heirloom tomatoes at the market. Grabbed a cucumber and a yellow onion and, after minimal prep, threw it all in the food processor with huge handfuls of cilantro and parsley, plenty of salt and pepper, and a couple small cloves of raw garlic. A squeeze of lemon juice and a few hits of hot sauce, and I had a huge batch of gazpacho for a few lunches.
I topped my bowl with diced avocado from the small half I had leftover, and man, did it fit the bill. Take that, ridiculous heat wave.
4 comments:
You need some tartness and some fatty consistency in there. Try adding some olive oil, and a touch of high quality sherry vinegar.
Oh, and if you want bread in there without making salmorejo, just add a few croutons on top when serving. I always like to add them along with some diced tomatoes and cucumbers for texture.
Daniel, I actually prefer mine without oil (and without bread). The lemon gives it plenty of tartness, though. Sometimes I do use a bit of sherry vinegar, or red-wine vinegar.
And the avocado did nicely for the consistency aspect.
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