adventures of an american housewife in the south of france

Summer Recipes: Gazpacho

Posted on Jul 26th, 2011 in Featured, Recipes | 0 comments
Welcome to another cold and simple Summer Recipe!  I'm preparing this post a week early because there's no doubt in my mind that by today, The Hub, Scott, Natalie and I are sitting on the beach in Cannes sweating our asses off and sipping rosé.  Just thinking of this cold, yummy soup is enough to cool me off!

my perfect consistency!

Gazpacho is something that The Hub loves and so I'd been wanting to try my hand at it for some time.  There are 2 ways to go when making Gazpacho - chunky or smooth.  As with peanut butter, I like my Gazpacho mostly smooth.  Every time I eat chunky Gazpacho I just feel like I'm eating some weird form of salsa with no chips.  The good news is that you can use this recipe to make it any level of chunkiness that you like - it's all a matter of how long you process the vegetables in the blender or food processor. This recipe is mostly Ina Garten's, with a few small tweaks.  If you are only making the Gazpacho for 2, I suggest cutting the recipe in half.  This made a boatload of Gazpacho and we were eating it for days. You'll Need:
  • 1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
  • 2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
  • 4 plum tomatoes
  • 1 red onion
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 23 ounces tomato juice (3 cups)
  • 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup good olive oil
  • 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
Mince the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and red onions into tiny pieces.  Place in a large stockpot with the tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix with an immersion blender until you've reached your desired level of chunkiness/smoothness.  Chill at least 2 hours before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop. *Alternative - Roughly chop the vegetables, put in a food processor, then combine with other ingredients.  I don't have a food processor yet here in France, so that's why I didn't make it this way. I chose to garnish the soup with some cream, but The Hub requested a small handful of chopped vegetables for next time.  You could also use poached shrimp as garnish, which I served on the side.

serve with rose, natch.

Recognize the No Cook Zucchini Side Salad?  It was a perfect side to this soup! Side note:  I had to go to 4 different stores before I found white wine vinegar and tomato juice.  What's up with this place?!

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