Gazpacho

Gazpacho is the essence of Spanish cuisine and it reaches perfection when made and topped with Premium Serriana olive oil. Gazpacho is best made with fully summer ripened tomatoes.

The heart of a great Spanish gazpacho lie premium olive oil and tomatoes. You already know about extra virgin olive oil, so, let's talk a bit about tomatoes:

Like so much great Mediterranean food, gazpacho is the recipe to reach for when you have too many tomatoes! Imagine you have a wonderful harvest and the tomatoes are deep red and sun ripened? What do you do with all those tomatoes? Well, make gazpacho, of course.

So, don't use supermarket bought tomatoes! Go find a farmers market where the tomatoes are brought direct from the field to the stall. Oh, and buy the slightly mushy tomatoes. You know, the one's that are about to be too ripe. Often, you can buy these for a great price! Let the firm tomatoes go into salad. For great gazpacho, we want 'almost too ripe' tomatoes. 

There are many types of tomatoes too. Probably the large, dark red, juicy beefsteak tomatoes are the best. But, these are usually only ripe at the end of summer. So, choose the juiciest whenever you shop. Just make sure they are local and not prepacked or early picked (as these don't have the same flavour).

Step 1: Peel the skin from the cucumber and the salad onion. And peel the garlic glove too.

Step 2: Deseed and wash the red pepper

Step 3: Wash the tomatoes well

Step 4:  Put everything in a food processor plus the olive oil and vinegar and blend everything. 

Step 5: Chill the gazpacho in the fridge before serving. Or, if in a hurry, serve over ice cubs

Step 6: Sprinkle sunflower seeds and drizzle with Serriana olive oil

These ingredients are enough to make four large portions or eight small ones. Often, on a hot summer day, a bowl of gazpacho is enough to make a meal.

When you make gazpacho, you are just making a base. Once you have the base you can add pretty much any fruit you like! Here in Spain, tomato season kicks off at the same time as cherry season - so, putting these two together gives you an extra pungent, powerful, tasty health kick! 

I've added sunflower seeds and a drizzle of Serriana olive oil topping to mine, below:

You can of course, serve your gazpacho with just added cherries like this. Naked!

The trick to adding fruit to your gazpacho recipe is to following these tips:

Did you enjoy the gazpacho recipe? If so, why not check out more olive oil recipes here?

Fun Fact: Did you know that 'tomato's Latin name translates as 'Wolf Peach'.