Gorgeous Gazpacho

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.

How To Floor a Holy Man, or Why The Imam Fainted

There are two supposed reasons why an Imam fainted, when his new wife presented him with this stewed aubergine dish swimming in fragrant tomato oil. The first reason is that the flavour of the dish was so magnificent the Imam collapsed in awe of her cooking ability. The second is that he was so appalled by the amount of olive oil used in the recipe (and the associated cost), that he fainted with horror at his wife’s profligacy. I prefer the first reason. I like people to be well-disposed, not stingy old gits. Especially if they are men of God.

When I make this recipe, I think I provide a third reason for an Imam to faint and it is in the preparation of the main ingredient, the aubergines. In their natural state, aubergines resemble a rather sturdy part of the male anatomy. When I peel them, halve them and cut a slit down the fleshy side of them, which I then stuff with chopped tomatoes, they resemble a more feminine body part – and resemble it closely enough to fell even the most worldly of priests. However –once I have stewed the life out of the aubergines, they just look like delicious slightly oily vegetables – a dish you could show it to the most prudish person on the planet, and not an anatomical thought would cross their pure and wholesome mind.

This recipe does use a lot of olive oil –and it is definitely worth investing in some really good stuff. The dish is best served tepid or cold and the flavours improve if you leave it -so a great one to make in advance. It is a lovely recipe –perfect served with naan bread (or my flatbreads),  some cool Greek yoghurt and a peppery green leafy salad.

Imam Bayildi (The Imam Fainted)

2 large aubergines

A vast amount of olive oil

3 large and beautiful tasting (I used Britain’s finest Jubilee tomatoes) beefy tomatoes, skinned and chopped

1 small onion cut into paper thin quarter moons

6 cloves garlic, chopped

2 large handfuls flat leafed parsley, chopped

Juice of one lemon

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Sea salt and Black pepper

Put a little oil into the bottom of a heavy pan (I use a Le Creuset casserole dish –works perfectly) and turn the heat to low. Add the onions and garlic, fry for a minute. In a bowl combine the  parsley and chopped tomatoes. Remove the onions and garlic from the heat and add to the tomatoes, season and combine.

Using a potato peeler, peel stripes down the sides of the aubergines, then cut each aubergine in half lengthways. Sprinkle the cut sides with salt and leave to drain for ten minutes. Wipe off the salt and juices with a piece of kitchen paper.

Turn the aubergine halves over so the fleshy side is uppermost. Cut a slit from just below the top of the aubergine to just before the bottom, forming a pocket (but not cutting the halves into quarters)

Add about ¼ cup of oil to the pan, heat gently and then place the aubergines cut side down into the pan and cook gently, adding a little more oil if they ‘drink’ what is there. Cook them for about five minutes on each side, returning them so they are flat side down.  Turn off the heat. Using a teaspoon stuff the tomato and onion mixture into the aperture of each aubergine. Fill them up as much as you can, then dot any remaining mixture around the pan. Finish the dish with a sprinkling of brown sugar, salt and pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Cover the pan and cook over a low heat, (checking to make sure the contents have not gone dry, and adding a little water if they have) for around 40 minutes –until the aubergines are soft but not mushy.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Sprinkle with a little chopped fresh parsley before serving. Prepare to catch any holy men.