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AAF’s Recipe of the Day

With the summer upon us and the torrid heat in some parts of the world making us lethargic, there’s nothing like a bowl of chilled Gazpacho, the wonder tomato soup from Spain via ancient Rome.

Often described as a liquid salad, gazpacho descends from ancient Roman concoction based on a combination of stale bread, garlic, olive oil, salt, and vinegar. As Romans labored to build roads and aqueducts across Spain in the scorching heat, this creamy soup replenished them with the necessary salt and vitamins lost through physical exertion.

Later, shepherds and farmers added vegetables to make it more hearty and satisfying. Because tomatoes and bell peppers were not indigenous to Spain, these ingredients were not added to the soup until after Spain’s discovery of the New World. Since that time, gazpacho has remained relatively unchanged - an unpretentious soup designed to quench the thirst evoked by the unrelenting Spanish sun. Ok, enough with the history, here’s my take on this: for 6 to 8 persons you’ll need:

200 gr of French baguette or country bread, 2 pounds ripe tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, peeled, 2 red onions, peeled and chopped roughly, the juice of 2 limes, 2 red and 2 green bell peppers, seeded and cut up, 1 cucumber, peeled and de-seeded and cut into little triangles for topping, 2 celery stalks, half a glass of olive oil, a dash of raspberry vinegar, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, a few basil leaves and salt & pepper to taste. Preparation is incredibly simple: in the food processor, start with some of the bread, add washed tomatoes, then more bread, cumin, garlic, the peppers, the onions, more bread, more tomatoes (you may have to do this in batches as your processor probably only holds 1 liter (mine is a commercial one, I can make 8 liters), then add the olive oil slowly, the lime juice, a generous dash of the raspberry vinegar (it adds a great taste to the concoction) and salt & pepper to taste. I like using celery salt. Decorate with thinly sliced basil leaves and the chopped cucumber on top. I’m sure there will be some leftover, so refrigerate well. It also freezes well. A trick you can do is to make ice cubes with leftovers and use them with Bloody Mary cocktails (Vodka or Gin plus tomato juice and a dash of lemon juice).