Cool, refreshing and filling, this classic Spanish white gazpacho is made with bread, almonds, cucumber, grapes, olive oil and garlic.
With all the hot weather that’s hitting much of the country, we thought we’d recommend a gazpacho, a chilled soup you can make quickly and with minimal use of the stove.
Not all gazpachos are made with tomatoes. White gazpacho is a classic dish from Spain, earlier versions dating back to when the Moors controlled Andalusia.
There are no dairy products. The soup gets its body and protein from the blanched almonds. The bread acts as a thickener. The cucumbers cool wonderfully.
White gazpacho
The recipe calls for stale bread as this soup makes an excellent use of stale bread that is too difficult to eat. When we buy freshly baked bread, sometimes we don’t eat it all, and the leftovers become dry and hard within a few days. We save the bread to make breadcrumbs. So this is what you would normally use.
If you don’t have stale bread lying around, you can use crustless white bread. Use a high-quality white bread, e.g. B. a French or Italian bread.
ingredients
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2 cups stale bread without crust, broken into pieces
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2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (use vegetable stock for vegan or vegetarian version)
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1 1/2 teaspoons salt
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1 cup blanched slivered almonds (need to be blanched, the skins are bitter)
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2 cups green seedless grapes, cut in half
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2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped
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1-3 minced garlic cloves (depending on how garlicky you want the result to be)
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2-3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or apple cider vinegar
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1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
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chives for garnish
special equipment
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food processor
method
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Heat broth, add bread:
Heat the broth until steaming. Turn off the heat and add the shredded pieces of stale bread to the broth. Let cool down.
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Grind almonds with salt and garlic:
Place almonds, salt and garlic in a food processor and pulse until almonds are pulverized.
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Add the bread, broth, grapes and cucumber, puree:
Place the soaked bread and any broth not absorbed by the bread into the food processor, then add the grapes and cucumbers. Pulse until the mixture is a coarse puree.
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Add vinegar:
Add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar and pulse a few seconds to combine. Taste and add the other tablespoon if needed – grapes can sometimes be acidic enough to leave out the last tablespoon of vinegar.
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Drizzle in olive oil with the food processor running:
With the engine running, drizzle in the olive oil. Turn off the engine and taste the gazpacho. Add more salt if necessary.
Chill before serving, garnish with chopped chives.
