As I said in the previous post, I came back right now from Spain, and since I’m still in a kind of spanish mood, what’s better than a gazpacho in a hot summer evening to keep staying in this spanish mood? 🙂

Gazpacho, like many other popular and traditional recipes, has for sure different variations, but the ingredients are usually always the same, it can change their quantity, but that’s it 🙂

It’s very easy, everything is raw, it means that we keep all the properties of the ingredients, so it’s a very healthy recipe, and it’s very refreshing.

Personally I blanched the garlic, so it’s not too “aggressive”, and I also like to add some basil leaves, which is not usually used in this recipe, but I think it fits well with it 🙂 and I used a red bell pepper, but I think usually in Spain they use the green ones.

INGREDIENTS (3-4 people):

• 3 small garlic cloves
• 1 onion
• half cucumber (about 150g)
• 1 kg ripe tomatoes
• half red bell pepper (about 100g)
• 1 slice of old bread (about 50g)
• 1 tea spoon of white wine vinegar (but also from red wine can be ok)
• 4-5 tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil
• 4-5 leaves of basil
• salt
• pepper
• some water, I used about 1 dl

1. First, we blanch the garlic twice: we cut them in half, we remove the eventual green internal part, and we put it in a small pan with some cold water, and we boil it. When it’s boiling, we remove the garlic, we change the water, and we do it another time. In this way the garlic will lose its sharpness.
2. Then we peel the cucumber and the onion, and we chop them into pieces. Then we cut also the tomatoes and the bell pepper (prior we remove the seeds and the white membrane from it).
3. We put all the ingredients in a pot or a bowl, and we start making a cream with an immersion blender. We add also the bread cut in pieces, and we add some water, and mix again with the immersion blender..
4. Once everything is creamy, we filter it with a fine-mesh strainer, squeezing all the liquid out and removing in this way the seeds and the peels. Then we add the extra virgin olive oil and the vinegar (and the basil leaves, if you want), and we mix again everything together, until it’s smooth.
5. We season now with salt and pepper, and we put it in the fridge to chill at least a couple of hours.
6. Serve it with croutons and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil 🙂

PS: I read that Ferran Adrià (one of the most famous spanish chefs) in its version of the gazpacho adds some little mayonnaise to make it a little bit more creamy. I didn’t do it, but it could be an interesting idea 🙂