By Adriana Zanchi
This is a wonderful and very forgiving dish inspired by two Spanish soups that are served cold during summer: Gazpacho and Salmorejo.
I’ve made this soup several times over the past few weeks, swapping and playing around with different ingredients. The base consists of ripe tomatoes and good-quality extra virgin olive oil, and then you can add a small quantity of other fruits or vegetables like cucumber, green pepper, courgette, watermelon, cherries… and stale bread too.
Let’s see below how I made it last week for our children’s group, Green Beans
Ingredients (serves 2 people, generously)
– 400-500g of ripe tomatoes (use a mix of varieties if you have access to them; we grow several kinds at Windmill!)
– 1 small cucumber
– 1 green pepper
– 1 small courgette
– ½ red onion
– 1 garlic clove
– a handful of stale bread, torn into small pieces
– sea salt and black pepper, to taste
– 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar or sherry vinegar if you have it
– lots of extra virgin olive oil
Method
Wash and roughly chop all the vegetables and place them in a blender or food processor with the seasonings and the bread. If you have a small blender like I do, you might need to do this in batches, so I recommend having a container or bowl next to you to slowly add the different batches and mix them together.
Taste and adjust the salt, pepper, vinegar, oil… everything!
Leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours and serve chilled with toasted bread, some cubed cucumber on top, and a drizzle of olive oil.
A friend of mine from Andalusia, likes to chop a boiled egg on top!
