The heat persists. And there are some regions around the northern hemisphere that have breached already the 40ºC (104ºF) mark. Like every summer we just need a way to refresh ourselves with some recipes. Aeons ago the Andalusians developed the Gazpacho as one of the main recipes to fight off the heat. Just to let you know: there is no official recipe. Everyone has his own recipe or sometimes even two.
What you need:
- 4-5 plum tomatoes (they should be very mature and red, and better even if you have kept them a few days out of the fridge)
- 1 cucumber
- ½ green bell pepper
- ¼ onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 spoon salt
- ½ spoon pepper
- 5 spoons vinegar
- 5 spoon extra virgin olive oil
How you do it:
Peel and slice the tomatoes, pepper, cucumber and onion. Withdraw all the seeds from the tomatoes as well. Place everything in a bowl. Add the peeled garlic cloves at last. Add salt, pepper, vinegar, and olive oil and macerate everything for at least 4 hours. After the 4 hours prepare to blend the mix. Before blending, remove the garlic and the onion. Keeping garlic and onion in the gazpacho will make it heavy on your stomach so it is better to get rid of them, although the maceration time has helped to pass on the aroma into the mix. When you are done start blending the mix until you get a homogeneous emulsion.
Serve very cold and enjoy.
The Chef Cat 