The Ultimate Summer Refreshment
18 August 2009
To me, a cool cup of gazpacho is just the perfect afternoon refreshment after a day on the beach, at the lake, or elsewhere in the summer heat. The cold vegetable soup is so soothing when you feel too hot. Or revitalizing when you feel you’ve run out of energy. Like having a fresh salad in form of a drink. Just such a boon these days!
If you have a good blender, it is extremely quick and easy to prepare, and even better, you can make a whole jar full and have it waiting for you in the fridge for a week or so as an occasional snack to nibble from.
Having gazpacho very much reminds me of my long summer holidays during my student years, which I used to spend jobbing in Spain. Thanks to the common summer schedule (skipping lunchbreak and finishing early), I was usually done by 4 or so. The heat still being quite suffocating at that time of the day, I would spend the rest of the afternoon reading in some shady spot in the garden, only moving for occasional tours to the kitchen to top up my cup of gazpacho. I experimented with the amounts of the different ingredients to find the mixture that works best for me, and which I am still using today.
Though not quite as regularly, I have kept up the habit of occasionally making gazpacho during hot summer periods. I have to say that there are some ready made mixtures which are really excellent in taste and made of natural ingredients only – but I still take a certain pleasure in the mere process of preparing it myself, smelling the fresh vegetables as I cut them, and bit by bit adjusting the seasoning.
Of course, gazpacho is not necessarily just an in-between bite, but also a delicious starter to a meal. To garnish you can save some of the vegetables, cut them very finely into tiny little cubes and use them as a topping; you can also add a finely chopped hard boiled egg or some croutons.
Gazpacho
| for a big jar full |
| 500g high-quality canned tomatoes |
| 1 large cucumber |
| 1/2 red pepper |
| 1/2 mid-sized onion, mild |
| 1-2 dents of garlic, mild |
| about 40ml white wine vinegar |
| about 60-80ml extra virgin olive oil |
| salt to taste |
Peel the cucumber, the onion and the garlic and remove seeds and stem from the red pepper. Chop all vegetables into coarse bits and, together with the canned tomatoes, place them in a blender. (Of course you can use fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones – I tried it once or twice and didn’t find the result really superior; in my opinion not worth the effort of peeling all the tomatoes.)
Blend the vegetables until very smooth and homogeneous. If any slightly coarse bits remain, strain through a sieve if you wish. Season to taste with salt, white wine vinegar and cold-pressed olive oil.