The subject of chilled soups can divide friends and families in the UK. I have heard raised voices on the subject – the usual theme of the argument is that British soup should be served hot. Cold soup is for foreigners.
Given that the temperature of the UK is generally low and the air damp, hot soups would appear to be a more sensible option. However, this summer has seen unusually high temperatures and a complete absence of rain – making hot soups seem peculiar in blazing, arid heat. Instead, Brits should guzzle a bowl of gorgeous Gazpacho -a sort of chilled, liquefied, summer salad – given texture by bread and enriched and brightened with delicious olive oil and sharp sherry vinegar.
As the name suggests, this is a “foreign” soup -originally from Andalusia in Spain. I have seen variations in recipes -some avoid onions altogether, some leave out the cucumber. Once Gazpacho travels abroad, people do all sorts of awful things to it -adding almonds, olives, cumin seeds – missing the point of the dish entirely. This rustic soup was intended as a way of using up stale bread and making plentiful summer vegetables go further -it was never meant to be a luxurious recipe.
However -a good gazpacho won’t be that economical to make in the UK. In Spain, tomatoes are packed with flavour and are cheap; olive oil is not considered a “fancy” item. In the UK you have to make bank to get a decent tomato with any sort of flavour and olive oil is a middle class opportunity for one-upmanship – not a peasant staple. So embrace your inner bourgeois: shell out for some really pricey extra virgin olive oil, then buy tomatoes with fancy names and a good pedigree.
I personally cannot bear hot tomato soup -it reminds me of vile school dinners -that sweet, cloying scent filling the corridors as we queued at lunchtime; the lurid orange liquid with a texture like milk, served in a plastic beaker along with a stale white roll. Even the fanciest interpretations of tomato soup still fail to please me when hot -almost certainly a result of the trauma of disgusting school food. And yet, Gazpacho fills me with joy, both for its strange, slightly gritty texture and its happy summery flavours. I guess that makes me foreign, then…
Gorgeous Gazpacho
500g of the smallest, most delicious tomatoes you can get your hands on. The words “cherry” and “vine” (preferably together) are your best bet for finding flavourful tomatoes in a UK supermarket. If you grow your own, then that is even better.
1/2 cucumber
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
2 spring onions
1 or 2 cloves garlic (I would go 2 every time)
The best olive oil you have
1 slice bread (ideally something white and rustic -not sourdough)
2 tbsps. sherry vinegar
Halve the tomatoes, remove and discard the seeds. Roughly chop the cucumber, deseed and chop the peppers., chop the spring onions and peel the garlic
Place all the vegetables and bread into a blender along with 2 tbsps. very good olive oil and 1 tbsp. sherry vinegar. Blitz until smooth. Taste and season with sea salt, then add more vinegar until you get a good balance of acidity. If the mixture is too thick, add a little water (a tablespoon at a time). Add more olive oil to give richness. It won’t look like a bloody Mary, rather it will be fairly pink in colour -which is perfectly OK.
Chill the soup in the fridge -do not be tempted to add ice cubes as they dilute the flavour. I strongly disapprove of any garnishes on gazpacho -I have seen hideous recipes where the soup is hidden under what looks like an August compost heap of quartered tomatoes and onions and mint leaves, or great big slices of toasted bread and whole black olives. Leave it off – simply pour the soup into bowls and add a final swirl of delicious olive oil.
hongkonggourmet 