A delicious tomato based soup, served cold. It is very easy to prepare, and a perfect on a hot summer day.

Ingredients:

Combine all ingredients in a steel, glass, or enamel pan. Cover and chill for 4 hours. Garnish with extra parsley.

Gaspacho is great. Here are three recipes for it:

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You will need a blender to make this soup; and you'll need to start it in advance to allow time for chilling. If you're using a stock cube or powder, blend it in with the vegetables to make sure it's well-distributed. Add a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil at the end if you like; but I don't think it's necessary for either flavour or thickening.

Makes 1.2 litres (Serves 4)

225g (8oz) tomatoes (3 large)
1/3 cucumber (about 100g, 4oz)
1 small green sweet bell pepper
1 small red bell sweet pepper 1/2 small onion (about 50g, 2oz)
2 garlic cloves 400ml (15 fl oz)
tomato juice 150ml (5 fl oz) vegetable stock
3 tbsp red wine vinegar salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 tbsp chopped fresh chives or mint or both

1. Dice the tomatoes, cucumber and bell peppers. Reserve about a quarter of each for garnish, and put the rest into the blender. Finely dice the onion and garlic, and add these to the blender too.

2. Pour the tomato juice into the blender and blend until smooth. Stir in the stock and wine vinegar, and chill for 30 minutes.

3. Mix in the reserved vegetables and the herbs. Serve with croutons or French bread if desired.

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24 Tomatoes
4 Cucumbers
4 Green peppers
8 cloves of garlic
Optional: chopped onion
4 cups olive oil
2 cups wine vinegar
4 teaspoons of salt

Put the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 secs to make peeling easier and dice it in small chunks. Peel cucumber and dice it small. Dice pepper and garlic cloves very small. Mix all the vegetables in a food processor starting with tomatoes until it gets soup consistency. Add the vinegar and pour oil slowly without stopping the mixer. Add some cold water if the mix gets thick. Gazpacho should be a soup, not a cream. Add salt to taste. Serve cold.

Serves: 16

Preparation time: 30 min (prepare a day in advance)

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Serve as a drink, or as a cold soup

1 medium tomato, peeled and diced
1/4 large cucumber, peeled and chopped
1/4 large green pepper, seeded
2 onion slices
2 parsley sprigs
6 ice cubes

Combine and liquify in blender with ice cubes. Serves 1

There are a lot of ways of preparing gazpacho, feel free to experiment and to add ingredients as you wish. Above all, the origins of gazpacho were as a poor's cold soup, a cheap and easy way to prepare meal for the campesinos in Andalucia, Spain.

I grew up drinking a lot of gazpacho (my grandfather used to call me Daniel Gazpacho), and I still prepare a big bowl of gazpacho in the hottest days of the summer. My take at gazpacho is quite personal, as I like it in its simplest way:

Ingredients

  • Ripe tomato
  • Cucumber
  • Stale bread (aprox 100 grs)
  • Olive oil
  • Vinegar
  • Salt
  • Garlic
  • Fresh water (avoid using tap water if you live in a city)
Preparation:
Peel the tomatoes, and if you have time, take out the seeds. Put the stale bread in water. Peel the cucumber and make two halves of it.

Now take a mortar or a similar container and put the tomatoes, two or three garlic gloves, half cucumber, the bread and mix it with an electric mixer until you have a pink (it will be more reddish depending of how ripe are the tomatoes) paste.

Put salt (three teaspoon), vinegar (like four or five tablespoon, I like it strong) and a lot of good olive oil. Continue mixing and add the water. Some people like it thick (add less water), some like it with a strong vinegar flavour, correct with salt, oil or water, and taste it until you feel is "ok".
Then chop and add the other half cucumber.
Put it in the fridge and wait three or four hours before drinking it.
I usually make two or three litres of gazpacho that I consume over a week, and I like the fact that over the days, the gazpacho becomes tastier.

Remember that there's nothing written in stone about gazpacho, just make sure you don't use tomato juice!

Gazpacho is a really wonderful cold soup that goes well with sandwiches and other lunch-type items. I particularly like this recipe because of all the different vegetables in it; it adds extra flavor and diversity of texture.

What you will need:

To start, in a large plastic or glass container (it is not recommended to use metal, as this can cause the soup to taste metallic) combine the broth, V8 juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, pepper, and hot sauce.

Next, wash all the vegetables and cut them into small pieces. (For a more blended soup, you can puree all the vegetables.) Add them to the juice mixture.

Cover the container and allow to chill in the refridgerator for at least four hours. Note: This soup tastes better and better the longer you let it set, as the flavors mix together more and more.

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