When I had my shop we served a number of soups every day, even in the summer, when we oftentimes conjured up a cold soup recipe.
Our head chef Eric, really was a soup genius and this one, reminiscent of Gazpacho was one of his best.
I’m not sure where this soup has its origins, but Eric claimed he stole it off the internet, and called it Salmorejo. So I went and looked it up and sure enough “About.com” had the answer. Salmorejo is a Spanish soup originating in Cordoba, Spain. Its a cold and creamy tomato soup, made with bread, oil, garlic and vinegar and is indeed based upon gazpacho.
Here’s the recipe, which should only take you 10 minutes to prep and another 20/30 minutes in the refrigerator to cool. What I like most is that it calls for vine ripened tomatoes. Yields 4 servings:
Ingredients :
2 hard boiled eggs
2 oz. Prosciutto or Serrano ham diced
1 day old baguette
1 large clove of garlic
2 lbs. of vine ripened tomatoes
8 oz. olive oil
2 oz. red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
After hard boiling the eggs, place in cold, ice water to cool. Refrigerate until ready to use as a garnish.
Cut off the crust from the baguette, then cut into slices 1/2 inch thick. Add the bread to about 1/4 inch of water in a large dish. Allow the bread to soak for 30 minutes. Squeeze the excess out of the slices and place in a food processor.
Peel and mince the garlic and place in the food processor. Peel the tomatoes and remove as many seeds as possible. This will cut down on any tomato bitterness. Add to the food processor, along with the vinegar and process.
While processing, slowly pour in the olive oil. Continue to process until smooth. If the mixture is too thick add some cold water while processing. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes prior to serving.
Add hard boiled eggs and prosciutto as a garnish.
Side Note: Why do we add the olive oil slowly when processing? It’s called emulsifying and it is done so that the oil does not separate from the other ingredients. Look at a bottle of any salad dressing and you can see how the oil is separated from the other ingredients. You don’t want lumps of oil in your finished product do you?
