La pomme espagnole

Summer has finally arrived! And in Spain, it’s getting seriously hot. They say that June is the mildest month of summer in Madrid. If that’s the case, I might not be alive to continue this blog by the time July and August come around. It’s already 30˚C everyday with a sun that is so bright it actually hurts to go outside.

The positive side of summer however is that I absolutely adore summer food. I love experimenting with salads, eating lots of grilled fish, and of course cold soups! And the best part of being in Spain in summer is GAZPACHO!

My first attempt at making gazpacho in Spain! Delicious!

Gazpacho is a chilled vegetable soup, traditionally done with a lot of tomatoes. The gazpacho we know today originated in the south of Spain in the province of Andalucía, although some say you can find recipes similar to gazpacho which come from way back when the Moors occupied Spain. Of course, gazpacho would have been tomato-less until the 16^th century when the conquistadors brought tomato seeds from South America.

Today gazpacho comes in many different flavours, using a variety of vegetables and fruit. Chefs all over the world are altering the traditional recipe by using ingredients such as watermelon, papaya, avocado, and green tomatoes. While all of these recipes sound delicious, I love traditional gazpacho so much that I don’t feel the need to change it at all.

I am lucky to have been given a wonderful recipe by Andrés’ mother, the woman who has been introducing me to many Spanish dishes since I’ve arrived here. This recipe uses the traditional gazpacho vegetables: tomatoes, cucumber, onion, green pepper and garlic. The most important ingredient is the tomato. If you have bad, unripe, or hard tomatoes, don’t even try it. Make sure your tomatoes are ripe and juicy and have lots of flavour. You will also be adding bread to add texture to the gazpacho. It’s best to use day-old bread, and try to find the cheapest baguette you can find. It doesn’t have to be quality bread, but none of that mushy sliced-bread stuff. Also, once you’ve blended all of the ingredients into a thick soup, you can choose to either leave the chunks in, or strain the gazpacho to make it smooth. Both are very good, it just depends which texture you prefer. Gazpacho can be eaten from a bowl or sipped from a glass, and always tastes best on a hot summer afternoon! Enjoy!

Gazpacho Recipe

Courtesy of Marisa Giménez

½ kg cucumber
125 g onions
250 g green peppers
2 kg ripe tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
8 tbs olive oil
6 tbs vinegar (I used cider vinegar but red wine vinegar is good too)
Bread (cut up into small pieces)
Salt, Cumin and Paprika to taste

Chop up all the vegetables as small as you can, and mix them together using a blender or food processor. Mix in the olive oil and vinegar. Add bread a little bit at a time, mixing well after each addition, until you’ve achieved the consistency you prefer. Add salt, cumin and paprika to your preference. Keep blending everything until you have a relatively smooth soup. You can now either leave it like this or strain out the small chunks. It is best to leave it in the refrigerator for a couple hours before serving.