A simple gazpacho soup recipe for the lazy. How to make gazpacho tomato soup

Summer is coming, and with it hot days, when you don’t want to eat hot food at all. These days, cold soups come in handy, as they are refreshing on a hot day and at the same time saturate the body with useful substances. After all, cold soups are prepared mainly from various vegetables.

The homeland of Gazpacho is the south of Spain, Andalusia. And this soup was prepared back in the Middle Ages, when Spain was still part of the Islamic State. At that time it was called Ajo blanco and consisted of bread, water, garlic, olive oil, almonds, wine vinegar and salt. This dish acquired its red color thanks to Columbus, who brought tomatoes and peppers to Spain from South America.

These days, such a refreshing dish has become popular, especially during the hot season. It is incredibly quick and easy to prepare, and everyone, without exception, enjoys it.

The basis of the classic recipe is made up of only three products - tomatoes, sweet peppers and cucumbers, and the rest of the improvisations depend on our imagination. This recipe is the simplest and without bread. Although many chefs claim that white bread is a must, I beg to differ. I like this lightweight option.

Ingredients:

• tomatoes – 500 gr.
• cucumbers – 300 gr.
• sweet red pepper – 300 gr.
• onions – 150 gr.
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• ½ lemon
• salt - to taste
• ground black pepper - to taste
• parsley and basil

You can add white bread to Gazpacho soup, then it will be a real classic recipe, but I deliberately prepared a lighter version.

Select tomatoes for Gazpacho that are ripe, fleshy, and red in color. Then the soup will turn out beautiful and rich.

The most convenient way is to use a blender. To do this, chop all the vegetables randomly and quickly chop the tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and onions.

Mix all the vegetables, add salt, black pepper, pressed garlic and olive oil.

Squeeze the juice from ½ lemon and pour into the vegetable mixture. You can add a little cold water (1/2 cup), although I prefer to make the soup thicker.

Everything is ready, pour into portioned plates and garnish with parsley and a sprig of basil.

The prepared soup should be cooled for 10-15 minutes in the refrigerator. If desired, during this time you can fry the crackers and serve separately.

Delicious cold tomato soup

The peculiarity of this soup is that the sweet peppers are pre-baked in the oven. This results in an original and richer taste. Although many may argue with this. To all the objections, I can say one thing - cooking allows improvisation, it is thanks to it that so many recipes were born.

Ingredients:

• red ripe tomatoes – 8-10 pcs.
• sweet red pepper – 2 pcs.
• cucumbers - 3 pcs.
• onions – 1-2 pcs.
• garlic - 2 cloves
• whole grain bread - 2 slices
• balsamic vinegar - 3 tbsp. l.
• olive oil (can be replaced with sunflower oil) – 80 ml
• salt, pepper - to taste
• parsley or dill

We start cooking by roasting the peppers. Place them in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 15 minutes. The peppers should darken slightly and become soft.

In this recipe we use whole grain bread or wholemeal bread, although this is not at all important. Cut the bread into pieces and dry it a little in the oven. Grind several cloves of garlic and bread in a blender. There should be crumbs.

Finely chop the red onion and pour in balsamic vinegar, leave the onion to marinate.

Let's start preparing the vegetables. Remove the skin from the cucumbers with a knife. But in order to remove it from the tomatoes, we scald them with boiling water. After this, the skin comes off very easily.

The peppers are already baked, let them cool a little and remove the core with the seeds.

We chop the vegetables a little with a knife, and then chop them with a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In this mass we put chopped parsley or dill, or both, and grind it again with a blender.

Our onion is pickled, add it to the soup and chop it.

Pour the bread mass along with the garlic into the base for Gazpacho, mix everything again with a blender.

This is such a tasty and aromatic soup. The original recipe suggests placing this mixture in the refrigerator for 8 hours. I admit, I didn't wait that long. Added a little cold water when serving and garnished with a sprig of herbs.

To make the dish truly refreshing, I added a few ice cubes directly to the plate.

All that remains is to wish you bon appetit!

Video from Yulia Vysotskaya on how to prepare real Spanish Gazpacho

I love watching Yulia cook, quickly and with inspiration. She is a true connoisseur of Mediterranean cuisine, so I recommend watching this video for recipe inspiration.

Refreshing soup with tomato juice

The classic Gazpacho recipe involves using only fresh vegetables. But often the vegetable mass for soup turns out to be thick and should be diluted with liquid. Water is quite suitable for this, but the soup tastes better with tomato juice. I know that sometimes they even dilute it with dry red or white wine.

Ingredients:

• sweet red pepper – 2 pcs.
• cucumbers - 3 - 4 pcs.
• onions – 1-2 pcs.
• garlic - 2 cloves
• wine vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.
• olive oil (can be replaced with sunflower oil) – 100 ml
• tomato juice - 1 liter
• salt, pepper - to taste
• hot chili pepper - to taste

As usual, we begin to chop our vegetables one by one using a blender.

First, throw garlic, onions and hot pepper to taste into a blender bowl, grind them to a paste.

Then cut the cucumbers randomly (in this recipe we do not remove the skin). We also add pieces of red sweet pepper to the blender with the cucumbers and chop everything. I try not to grind the vegetables into a complete porridge, but leave the pieces, I think it tastes better.

Finally, chop the tomatoes. They give the most juice, but still the soup turns out quite thick.

Dilute it with tomato juice. You will need approximately 1 liter of juice, but adjust the amount yourself.

Now add salt, pepper, wine vinegar and olive oil. Stir and place in the refrigerator to cool.

When serving, chop a finely chopped cucumber into each plate and add herbs if desired.

Raw food recipe for first course with tomatoes

All proposed Gazpacho recipes are lean, because we prepare them exclusively from fresh vegetables. Raw foodists can safely take note of this recipe; the dish is prepared without heat treatment.

Ingredients:

• red ripe tomatoes – 0.5 kg
• sweet red pepper – 1 pc.
• cucumbers - 1-2 pcs.
• basil - a hefty bunch
• spicy adjika - to taste
• juice of 1 lemon
• sunflower seeds - 100 gr.
• thyme - a pinch
• green onions - a couple of feathers
• fresh herbs
• salt, pepper - to taste

The ingredients are similar, only instead of olive oil we will use sunflower seeds, and adjika instead of garlic.

When serving, the soup is supposed to be garnished with chopped vegetables. Therefore, before cooking, cut some sweet peppers, tomatoes and cucumber into small cubes. I don’t indicate the quantity, take it arbitrarily, but a little.

Also pre-soak the sunflower seeds with water.

Grind the remaining vegetables in a blender. Add basil, onion and parsley or dill.

From my own experience, I do not recommend using purple basil - the soup takes on an unattractive brown color. It’s better to decorate the dish with this basil when serving.

Adjika will add piquancy to this dish, add 1 tablespoon. And add a pinch of thyme for flavor.

We drain the water in which the sunflower seeds were soaked and also place them in a blender. Please note that they give a different color to this soup, yellowish. But taste is important to us.

Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon, add salt and pepper. Ready!

Cooking Spanish summer soup with Gordon Ramsay

I couldn’t miss Gordon Ramsay’s virtuoso performance of a wonderful dish. The ingredients for Gazpacho are the same as in other recipes, but the taste and color are different. Give it a try.

I hope that I was able to interest you in this delicious, light and simple soup, which will be in great demand in the summer. Try to cook not only okroshka, but also a dish with a beautiful name - Gazpacho. And don't forget to stock up on ice cubes for hot days.

I hope we all have time to enjoy the hot summer days.

Classic gazpacho is a dish of Spanish cuisine, which was previously the main food of poor peasants working in the fields in incredible heat, as it quenched thirst and satiated well. With a low calorie content, the soup was not tiring and encouraged further work.

In the modern world, it is prepared by many people as an alternative to other cold soups.

Secrets of making gazpacho

The composition of the products used in its preparation involves obtaining a mass of vitamins and at the same time “cooling” the body in the heat. The latter, by the way, has a beneficial effect on the process of weight loss, since eating almost any cold food leads to weight loss.

Cold soup is not the most common dish in cooking. Therefore, gazpacho has become so popular due to its simplicity and rich taste.

Gazpacho is served in chilled glass bowls or bowls, always with ice. You need to store it in the refrigerator in a special clay pot, this way it enhances its unique taste. And the true taste of the soup appears the next day after preparation. Gazpacho is eaten only in the summer, in the heat, when ripe natural vegetables are available in abundance in the markets.

How to make gazpacho at home? We will tell you the recipe!

The cold soup contains pureed tomatoes, olive oil, cucumbers, sweet peppers, stale white bread, garlic, lemon juice, wine vinegar, hot pepper. The dish is of Andalusian origin and is a typical representative of the soups of Mediterranean cuisine.

In principle, there is no single recipe for gazpacho - no matter how many housewives prepare it, there are so many different interpretations. Each cook has his own secret to making delicious cold soup, and adds his own family favorite ingredient. Gazpacho can be prepared with fish, meat, strawberries and melon, shrimp and capers, grapes and sour cream.

Classic gazpacho recipe

It is not difficult to prepare gazpacho according to the classic recipe - the main thing is that the ingredients are at hand, and certainly fresh. If you don't have tomatoes at home, you can easily replace them with tomato juice. You can also fantasize and experiment with the other components. When serving, be sure to serve croutons with or without garlic, in small cubes or in pieces.

The soup must be cold; for this purpose, there may be ice on the table. The base of the soup should be chopped and pureed, and a small part of the ingredients should be cut into cubes or plates. All types of gazpacho should contain olive oil (even if you are preparing it in reserve for the winter), it softens the taste and makes the dish richer. The presence of vinegar keeps the soup from fermenting and also gives it a unique flavor accent.

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes (slightly overripe) – kilogram;
• Yellow sweet pepper – 2 pieces;
• Long cucumber – 1 piece;
• Spanish red onion – 1 piece;
• Garlic – 2 cloves;
• White stale slice of bread (preferably white);
• Wine vinegar - a tablespoon;
• Olive oil – 2 tablespoons;
• Salt, sugar - to taste.

Preparation:

Wash the tomatoes, then peel the skin using boiling water (lower for 2 minutes, after making cross-shaped cuts on the side of the stem; after boiling water, cool sharply with cold water). This makes tomatoes easy to peel. Next you need to cut and remove the stalk and seeds. Peel the pepper from stems and seeds, cut into cubes. Crush the garlic with a knife or pestle. Peel and chop the onion.

Peel the cucumber and cut into large cubes. Break the bread into several pieces. Grind everything in a blender until smooth, adjust to taste with salt, vinegar, sugar, lemon and Tabasco sauce. You can rub it through a sieve, but it is not necessary. Season the soup with olive oil, stir, pour into a clay jug. Refrigerate until the next day, or at least 3 hours to cool.

This first course is usually served with freshly prepared white bread croutons. To prepare them, bread should be cut into large squares and fried in olive oil. When serving, garnish the dish with finely chopped sweet green peppers, drizzle with olive oil and add a couple of pieces of ice.

Tomato soup for spicy lovers

For lovers of spicy food, you can prepare cold tomato soup with hot peppers. For four servings of soup, you need to take a liter of fresh tomato juice, two cucumbers, two hot peppers, two onions, 50 grams of white vinegar, Tabasco sauce to taste, salt, ice.

We peel all the vegetables, chop them, grind them in a blender, then rub them through a sieve and bring them to the desired taste with the help of seasonings and spices. If you like very hot dishes, add more Tabasco sauce. The resulting mixture must be cooled in the refrigerator for at least three hours. We put ice in the glasses (it is advisable to use crushed ice), and pour portions of soup on top, garnish with chopped cucumber and herbs.

Of course, those people who have gastritis or gastric ulcers are strongly discouraged from eating such dishes. But for those who have low acidity of gastric juice, they will come in very handy.

Gazpacho cannot be called an exotic dish, but it obviously will not be a regular guest on your table. Perhaps, before today's close acquaintance with this tasty and healthy dish, you did not even know about it.

The main remarkable quality of this dish is the preservation of all its main components in their original form, which is why they continue to carry all their main valuable properties. Bon appetit!

This dish began its conquest of culinary Olympus with the appearance of a simple bread soup, but today this soup has more than a hundred preparation options. The popularity of the Spanish treat has reached its peak today, but it is the classic recipe for how to make gazpacho tomato soup at home that invariably leads among other versions. And today we want to offer you three of the most popular gazpacho recipes among the world's gourmet audience: classic tomato, traditional white and old shepherd's.

The very first cold soups in Spain, from which the era of gazpacho started, were prepared from the simplest ingredients: bread, water, salt, oil, vinegar and garlic. And here everything is natural, because the authors of such a now famous dish were poor shepherds. Over time, the range of products added to the camp stew has grown significantly, and at the moment, from a predominantly bread dish, gazpacho has become primarily a vegetable dish.

The story of the transformation of peasant stew into a noble dish is one to one similar to our beloved okroshka. This is why our brother quickly fell in love with gazpacho and became a frequent guest on our tables.

Classic gazpacho recipe

Ingredients

• — 600 g + -
• - 2 heads + -
• — 2 fruits + -
• - 3 pcs. + -
• — 100 g + -
• - 2 tbsp. + -
• — 7 ml + -
• - 2 pcs. + -
• Tomato juice – 0.5 l + -
• Fresh cilantro - 1/2 bunch + -
• Tabasco sauce - 5-6 drops + -
• Stale bread - 5-6 slices + -

How to make gazpacho soup at home

If in every country in the world where this Spanish soup is popular, you look for the best recipe for making gazpacho with a photo, video, or handwritten with step-by-step instructions, then this particular option will be offered everywhere as the most authentic and original.

And that’s why we share with you this simple and very quick recipe without any hesitation. And you can be absolutely sure it will be very tasty!

• For soup, we only need tomato pulp, and the skins and seeds should be removed. You can get rid of the skin by dipping a cut tomato in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then cooling it sharply. And we will sift out the seeds after grinding all the ingredients.
• So, in a common container we put tomatoes cut into slices, bell peppers peeled and cut into squares, cucumber peeled and chopped into large cubes, bread soaked in cold water, garlic and finely chopped onion. Using a blender, we turn the chopped vegetables into a homogeneous puree, which should then be rubbed through a fine sieve to get rid of seeds and coarse fibers.

Season the resulting cream soup with tomato juice, salt, oil, vinegar, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice and finely chopped cilantro, mix everything thoroughly and refrigerate for 1.5-2 hours.

Traditional white gazpacho recipe

Did you know that the first gazpachos were not red, but white? Even before the discovery of tomatoes, the Spaniards knew how to prepare the most delicious creamy soup from soaked almonds, bread and green boneless grapes. No matter how strange it may be, the recipe for this treat is surprisingly very simple and anyone can repeat it at home.

Ingredients

• Chilled purified water – 0.5 l;
• Almonds – 150 g;
• Green seedless grapes – 2 medium bunches;
• White bread for toast - 2 slices;
• Garlic – 1 clove;
• Olive oil – 65 ml;
• White wine vinegar – 30 ml;
• Extra salt – ½ tsp;
• Fresh parsley leaves – 50 g;
• Crushed ice - 1 cup.

How to make gazpacho at home

1. Pour boiling water over the peeled almonds for 5 minutes, after which we peel the kernels from the husks.
2. Soak the bread crumb in cool water, then squeeze out the excess liquid from the loaf and grind it together with nuts, grapes (1 branch) and garlic in a blender to a paste.
3. Pour olive oil, vinegar, salt into the resulting slurry and again blend the entire composition with a blender until the ingredients are completely mixed.
4. Dilute the finished puree with chilled water, add crushed ice, beat the soup with a mixer for just a couple of minutes and pour into soup bowls.

The soup should be served sprinkled with finely chopped parsley along with grapes.

Original recipe for hot gazpacho

Touching upon the topic of the classic gazpacho recipe, we cannot fail to mention the winter version of this legendary dish. There are at least three popular versions of preparing warm Spanish stew: and we were most interested in the third recipe for real hot shepherd's soup.

In this case, we have an unusual set of ingredients for gazpacho, since the basic composition includes 4 types of meat. Let's take a step-by-step look at each stage of preparing this warming meat lunch.

Ingredients

• Partridge – 1 carcass;
• Hare (game) – 0.3 kg;
• Chicken – 0.3 kg;
• Rabbit meat - 0.25 kg;
• Unleavened bread (lavash) – 2-3 flatbreads;
• Red bell pepper – 1 pc.;
• Large tomato – 1 pc.;
• Olive oil – 60 ml;
• Salt - to taste;
• Ground black pepper – ½ tsp.

How to make hot gazpacho soup

1. To prepare the meat, we will need a very large pan, since we will cook all the meat components in it at once. So, put the carcass of partridge, hare, rabbit and chicken into an enamel container, fill everything with water to cover the meat and set to cook for 3 hours at low temperature. The process is reminiscent of cooking our jellied meat.
2. When the broth has reduced by 2/3, remove the meat onto a tray using a slotted spoon, wait until it cools, and transfer to fillets. Large pieces of meat should be chopped into thin slices.
3. We pass the meat broth through a strainer, add some salt to taste, pour in olive oil, finely chopped red bell pepper, season the broth with black pepper and put it on the fire. When the brew boils, put unleavened cakes cut into small squares (2x2 cm) into the pan. At medium temperature, cook the soup for 20 minutes, stirring the mixture regularly with a wooden spatula so that the cakes do not stick to the bottom.
4. After a third of an hour, transfer the chopped fillet to the gazpacho and cook the soup for another 5 minutes.

Classic hot gazpacho is a very tasty and satisfying dish that will be an excellent innovation in the winter menu.

The Gazpacho recipe is quite simple and easy to prepare at home. A spicy chilled soup will refresh you in the summer heat, and a heated dish will warm you up in the winter cold.

The classic Gazpacho recipe includes the following components:

• large tomatoes - 15 units;
• cucumber - 4 units;
• sweet pepper - 3 units;
• garlic - 4-5 cloves;
• bran bread - 3-4 slices;
• red salad onion - 1 head;
• olive. butter - 125 g;
• red wine vinegar - 4 tbsp. l.;
• parsley - a small bunch;
• tomato juice/cold drinking water/dry red wine - to taste.

Let's start with the spices. Combine the peeled garlic cloves and salt in a mortar and grind until a paste forms. Then add slices of bread and grind. Next, gradually pour in the oil, without stopping the pestle. When the mass becomes homogeneous, cover the mortar with film and leave for an hour and a half.

In the meantime, let's take care of the vegetables. Chop the onion into small cubes, place in a small bowl, and pour in vinegar. Remove the skins from the tomatoes, cut the fruits into quarters, and remove the seeds. With a knife, cut off the skin of the cucumber and cut into small cubes. Grease the pepper a little with oil and bake in the oven at 200 degrees. within 10 minutes. When black marks appear on the surface of the fruit, the pepper can be removed from the oven.

When the fruits have cooled a little, peel them and cut out the core with seeds.

We wash the greens, dry them and finely chop them.

Place several pieces of different vegetables into a blender bowl and chop. Gradually add all the vegetables and pickled onions. At the end, add the garlic preparation to the total mass and chop everything one last time.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and leave to brew overnight.

Serve in small tureens, diluting the thick mass with a small amount of tomato juice, water or dry red wine diluted with water - whichever you prefer.

On a note. To make the skins of tomatoes easier to remove, place them in boiling water for a couple of minutes.

With crackers and spices

• red sweet pepper - ½ fruit;
• green pepper - ½ fruit;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• cucumber - ½ fruit;
• shallots - 2 heads;
• tomatoes - 3 medium fruits;
• fresh mint leaves - 10 g;
• chili pepper - ½ fruit;
• wine vinegar (red) - 50 g;
• bread crumbs - 25 g;
• ketchup - 1 teaspoon. l.;
• drain oil - 10 g;
• white bread - 20 g;
• water - 400 g;
• olive. oil, salt, pepper - to taste.

We wash the vegetables and herbs thoroughly and dry them with paper napkins. Remove the seeds from the pepper and cut the pulp into small pieces. Cut the cucumber and tomatoes into small cubes. Peel the garlic and onion, rinse and chop very finely. Grind the peeled chili seeds and mint as finely as possible.

Leave 2-3 tablespoons of pepper and cucumber in a separate plate to add to the finished dish. Combine the rest in a large saucepan, adding vinegar and ketchup. Salt and pepper to taste. Dilute the mixture with water and mix. Grind the mixture with a blender and let the soup cool in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

In the meantime, let's prepare the crackers: fry the pulp of white bread, cut into cubes, in a mixture of melted butter and olive oil. To ensure an even golden crust, the crackers need to be stirred constantly, shaking the bowl.

Place the soup in tureens and add the same amount of vegetables to each. Crackers are served in a separate plate.

How to prepare hot gazpacho?

Hot Gazpacho soup is filling and quick to prepare:

• sweet pepper (green) - 1 unit;
• bread (stale) - 1 kg;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• orange - 1 unit;
• tomatoes (ripe) - 4 units.

Rinse the tomatoes and let them cook without cutting them. As soon as the water boils, remove the tomatoes and peel them, then cut into slices and place in a blender bowl.
Place the stale bread in a saucepan with the water from the tomatoes and continue to cook over low heat, checking its softness. When it becomes soft, break it and add it to the tomatoes. We clean the peppers from seeds, cut them into pieces and add them to the bread and tomatoes. Season with salt and add peeled garlic cloves. Grind everything with a blender until smooth.

If the soup turns out thick, add a decoction of tomatoes and bread until the desired consistency is obtained. At the end, pour in a little oil, process with a blender, then let it brew for a few minutes, and serve, pouring a little orange juice over it.

Healthy first course with celery

• red tomatoes - 3 units;
• celery - 2 stalks;
• sweet pepper - 1 unit;
• cucumber - 3 units;
• garlic - 1 clove;
• onion - ½ head;
• fresh herbs, dried basil;
• salt and sugar - to taste;
• balsamic vinegar - 1-2 teaspoons. l.;
• olive butter - 1 table. l.

Prepare vegetables: remove the skins from cucumbers and tomatoes, remove the core and seeds from peppers. Chop everything coarsely, including greens and celery. Place all vegetables in a blender bowl and chop. Leave in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours. In summer, you can add ice cubes before serving.

Green gazpacho recipe

• sweet green pepper - 1 unit;
• boiled water - 100 ml;
• garlic - 1 clove;
• dry white wine - 1 table. l.;
• cucumber - 2 units;
• parsley - 1 bunch;
• a slice of wheat bread;
• olive butter - 2 tablespoons. l.;
• salt.

Soak the bread crumb in water.

Peel the cucumbers, remove the seeds from the peppers, and peel the garlic. Rinse and chop the greens. Combine the prepared products in a blender bowl and grind. Add oil, wine, water, salt to taste and mix everything well. Pour into tureens.

Dukan soup

• 3-5 ripe tomatoes;
• ½ sweet pepper;
• ½ cucumber;
• 1 onion;
• 1 garlic clove;
• 2 tsp. l. olive oils;
• ½ tsp. l. balsamic vinegar;
• a little hot red pepper;
• 1 tsp. l. stevia;
• 200 g of water;
• salt, ground pepper.

All products are cleaned, rinsed, cut into small pieces and placed in a blender container. Spices, vinegar and other products listed in the recipe are added to them. You need to chop vegetables, starting at low speed and ending with high speed, for 4-5 minutes. To quickly cool a dish, you can put it in the freezer for half an hour.

Gazpacho in a slow cooker

• 4 tomatoes;
• 1 bell pepper;
• 2 cucumbers;
• 1 onion;
• 25 m milk;
• 3 tsp. l. vinegar;
• 100 ml vegetable oil;
• 2 tsp. l. Tabasco sauce;
• salt and spices to taste.

We wash the vegetables under running water. Remove the skin from the cucumber, cut into halves and remove the seeds. We also remove the seeds from peppers and tomatoes and cut them into small pieces. Mix with butter, sauce and milk, don’t forget about vinegar. Mix well and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for an hour and a half. Then grind in a blender for about 3 minutes until pureed. Pour it into a multicooker bowl, dilute it with a small amount of water if necessary if the consistency is very thick. Add salt and spices. Select the “Soup” mode and cook for 15-20 minutes. Then let the soup cool. Can be served with crackers.

Cooking secrets and tricks

Italian Gazpacho soup can pleasantly diversify your diet in the summer season, replacing the usual okroshka in our area, or warm you up in winter if you make it hot.

To prepare the most correct Italian soup, pay attention to the following nuances:

1. Italian dishes are distinguished by an abundance of herbs. They need to be added before cooling - while they are in the cold, the herbs will impart flavor to the dish.
2. You can serve the soup with cream, sour cream, and herbal-infused oils.
3. It is necessary to remove the skin from tomatoes and cucumbers. It is also correct to remove the seeds from them.
4. The soup is served with wheat croutons fried in oil and garlic. They go especially well with hot Gazpacho.

Gazpacho is a cold tomato soup with pieces of bread, pepper, garlic, olive oil, cucumbers, onions, lemon juice, salt, spices and vinegar. Gazpacho soup is very popular in Spain, Portugal, southern France, the USA, Mexico, Latin and South America.

Initially, gazpacho was made only from bread, olive oil and vinegar. It was a stew similar to the Russian prison. This is how this soup was known during the Roman Empire and was prepared throughout modern Spain, Portugal, Italy and the south of France. The appearance of gazpacho in the form in which we know it now began in Andalusia long before Columbus’s voyages to America. They started using overripe vegetables in the soup, and the gazpacho was an unappetizing greenish color.

Many will be surprised, but tomatoes in gazpacho appeared only in the 19th century and they did not want to recognize the newfangled red gazpacho for a long time and even actively resisted the innovation, continuing to prepare the traditional version with bread crumb, vegetables, olive oil, and vinegar. Moreover, in cookbooks the name caspacho often refers to a stew with vegetables rather than a cold soup. This division, obvious in the 18th and 19th centuries, today can confuse the unprepared public - the same name is used to call a pureed tomato soup and the same name is called a stewed meat dish.

The origin of the name of this Spanish dish lies in the play on several verbs denoting tearing, macerating and chopping. The Spanish still argue about the name and the primacy of the name, but the rest of the world has long accepted gazpacho as one of the main Spanish culinary brands. The dish spread beyond Spain and gained international recognition, first in Spanish-speaking countries and then throughout the world. Gazpacho is loved for its ease of preparation, fresh and clear taste, pleasant vegetable richness and beautiful color.

We will offer a basic recipe for gazpacho, as it is seen in Spain. It’s worth clarifying right away that it’s not customary to give exact proportions, because everyone prepares their own gazpacho, and to describe everything by gram is to kill the poetry of cooking. This approach to the recipe is observed in Italy, and in southern France, and in general in many Mediterranean countries. Typically, experienced chefs emphasize certain operations or make important comments on the quality of the food, its ripeness or the use of vegetable varieties. In any case, by preparing gazpacho far from its historical homeland, we will get our own soup, which will be completely in accordance with European culinary traditions. The most important thing is not to be afraid of ruining anything. This is exactly the case when you need to try hard to cook poorly or incorrectly.

So, recommendations from Spanish and Portuguese chefs:
. Use good ripe vegetables. Rinse them well, peel and cut into cubes.
. Remove seeds and skins by pouring boiling water over vegetables.
. Bread may be stale, but not moldy. Soak it in water before use. The bread must be wheat.
. You can dry the bread yourself. Make croutons using a grill pan or oven. Croutons should not be too dry.
. If you want classic gazpacho, use a mortar and pestle. Gazpacho cooks faster in a blender, but produces an overly homogeneous structure and foam.
. Even if you prepare everything in a blender, be sure to pound fresh herbs in a mortar before adding them to the jug.
. Add ice water.
. Taste your gazpacho before and after adding spices, salt, garlic and olive oil. Add in small portions - perhaps the amount of additives will seem sufficient to you during an intermediate test.

Gazpacho in Andalusian style

Ingredients:
stale bread,
tomatoes,
cucumbers,
Bell pepper,
greenery,
onion,
garlic,
olive oil,
vinegar,
salt.

Preparation:
Wash the vegetables, peel the rough skin and cut into cubes. Remove the seeds. Make croutons or use stale bread. Soak the bread. For the traditional method, first grind spices and aromatic ingredients, such as garlic, in a mortar, and then grind the vegetables in small portions and mix in a common plate. For a modern blender method, place the tomatoes, cucumber, onion, garlic, pepper and soaked bread crumbs in a blender jar and blend. Add spices in portions.

Gazpacho is somewhat similar to Russian okroshka, and here’s why. Sometimes, to diversify the soup, finely and medium-cut pieces of ungrinded vegetables, croutons, ham, eggs, boiled green peas or seafood are added to gazpacho. The only difference is that they are added to a plate or mug with gazpacho already poured, rather than pouring gazpacho into the slices. For this version of the soup, it is customary to make gazpacho not too liquid and add water sparingly. This version of gazpacho is called salmorejo in southern Spain. Supposedly, a similar soup served as a marinade for cooking big game, but over time it merged with gazpacho and became one of its regional versions.

Another version of gazpacho is considered ajoblanco - a cold soup made from soaked bread crumb, olive oil, with the addition of garlic, almonds and vinegar. Ajoblanco is served with slices of melon in any cafe in Malaga or Seville. There are versions of ajoblanco with grapes, fresh fruit slices and baked potatoes. Blanco, that is, this soup is made white by intensively whisking olive oil with vinegar and water to an emulsion of a specific light shade. Ajoblanco and salmorejo are considered, if not the ancestors of gazpacho, then its siblings, whose culinary paths diverged at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Gazpacho with ice cubes is the most popular version of modern “tomato soup”. Gazpacho is made of medium thickness, a handful of ice cubes are poured into a broth mug and the prepared gazpacho is poured over everything. The ice will melt a little and provide additional moisture. It is important to note that only large cubes or ice of a different shape are used here, but in no case crushed ice, which can injure the oral cavity. Add ice sparingly; you only need to cool the gazpacho a little, and not make it icy.

Gazpacho has long ceased to be an exclusively Spanish soup. The appearance of tomatoes in his recipe itself meant that gazpacho was not a stale old recipe. Gazpacho allows you to cook it in many different ways, which is great! First, let's look at how gazpacho is prepared in other countries, and then look at how it is prepared in Russia, Ukraine and other countries where tomatoes have long become “like our own.”

In Latin America, from Mexico to Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, including Jamaica and Cuba, gazpacho is no less popular than in Spain. America is the birthplace of tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers. Modern gazpacho is unthinkable without tomatoes. American gazpacho is prepared with tomatoes, the same olive oil, stale bread soaked in water, garlic and spices. But the specificity of the region is the addition of avocado pulp. Avocados were cultivated by the Aztecs in the 3rd millennium BC, and were very highly valued before and after the “discovery” of the Americas by Europeans. These fruits have a neutral taste, they contain a lot of healthy fats; avocados are perfectly saturated and make gazpacho thicker and silkier in taste. Be sure to add lemon or lime juice to the avocado pulp to prevent it from darkening. Gazpacho with avocado is popular in the USA, South America, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Israel and Australia.

Gazpacho with avocado

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado,
6-7 ripe tomatoes,
2 cloves of garlic,
½ lemon or 1 lime,
1 sweet red pepper,
1 large red chilli, mild
2-3 tbsp. spoons of olive oil,
coriander greens (cilantro),
salt,
bread.

Preparation:
Soak the bread in water. Wash the vegetables, peel the garlic, remove the core and seeds from the peppers and tomatoes. Scoop out the avocado pulp with a spoon and place in a blender jug. Squeeze lemon juice onto avocado. Add butter, bread along with the water in which it was soaked, pieces of vegetables and a pinch of salt. Grind everything in a blender. Taste and add water if thick and salt if unsalted.

In addition to avocado, gazpacho with sweet and hot peppers is very popular in Mexico. It was Mexican tastes that significantly influenced the gazpacho recipe in Europe. Mexicans add several varieties of sweet peppers and mild red chilies to cold soup. By the way, chili adds more than just spiciness to the soup. On the contrary, red pepper varieties, which are usually used as an additive to gazpacho, have a low degree of spiciness, but they are very aromatic, and small bright red pieces of chili look great in the overall mix.

In Russia, many dishes are traditionally adapted to the specific needs of modern Russian cuisine. Of course, you can find ingredients that are exactly similar to Spanish ones, or even buy Spanish tomatoes, Spanish garlic, Spanish olive oil and enjoy Spanish gazpacho, but this is not only uninteresting, it is in itself contrary to the nature of a truly folk dish. I think that any peasant of Seville and Andalusia will shake hands with our chefs for their own approach to preparing gazpacho.

So, in Russia, black rye bread is used much more often, this greatly distinguishes Russians from the rest of the world, and this is not a reason to be ashamed. Rye bread has long been recognized as an element of a healthy diet, it’s just that Europeans do not know how to bake it. We are proud of our black bread and soak the stale crust or stale edge in water at Borodinsky's. Yes, the taste will change, but black bread adds courageous confidence, northern severity and a piece of the Russian soul to gazpacho. In addition to tomatoes and garlic, which is common in Russia, you can add ripe zucchini and fresh boiled green peas. If you associate gazpacho exclusively with the color red, then add red vegetables - tomatoes, sweet peppers and chili. Be careful with chilies, some varieties can be very hot, be sure to remove the seeds and white membranes, and of course, taste before adding to the mix. If color is not important, or you are familiar with ancient traditions and know that in ancient times the dish was not so beautiful, but no less tasty, then this frees up your hands. Ripe zucchini is sometimes added to gazpacho, apples, fresh mint, dill, cilantro and even boiled hard vegetables. But priority is always given to fresh ingredients. Whether or not to add tomato paste is a personal matter. If you trust the manufacturer or the color of the soup is disastrously pale, but you want red, add it. By the way, sweet and hot peppers give a good red color.

You will be surprised, but there is beet gazpacho. The beets are boiled or baked (which is preferable), peeled, cut into cubes and mixed with any mature vegetables, garlic, tomatoes and soaked bread. Beetroot gazpacho is a rather strange soup for Europeans, but Russian cuisine has its own cold soup - botvinya, the main ingredient of which is red beets, so everything is fine. Beets make excellent friends with vegetable oil - with olive, sunflower, sesame, hemp or soybean.

By the way, about oil. Of course, olive oil goes best with gazpacho. But sometimes it is quite difficult to find high-quality olive oil and you have to think about substitutions. Before adding the oil, smell and evaluate whether you want to combine these aromas, imagine them together. If the combination does not cause dissonance, add, but in moderation. If it doesn't seem enough, add it a little later.

Vinegar or lemon juice. Everything is more complicated here. Mediterranean cuisine uses balsamic or wine vinegar. This is not the same as our clear 6% vinegar or even apple cider vinegar, which is considered mild. If you can't get balsamic or wine vinegar, use lemon juice. Sometimes, instead of water, juice from sour apples or a little sour wine are added for flavoring. By the way, the tradition of adding wine to gazpacho is still alive in some areas of Italy. True, there it is called posca and is considered a traditional soldier’s dish from the times of the Roman Empire.

We understand that the more new or unusual elements that find their way into gazpacho, the further we move away from the Spanish name, and it's time to think about our own. As you know, Russia has always had three of its own cold soups - tyurya, okroshka and beetroot soup. Tyurya is almost identical to the Roman soldier's stew from the time of Christ, and beetroot soup is a sibling of gazpacho, which suggests close intercultural exchange in the mists of time, at least in the field of cooking. At the same time, we have an ironclad response to criticism of bold experiments. The main thing is to remember that gazpacho is bread, water, olive oil, vegetables, garlic, vinegar (or lemon), spices and salt, crushed to a puree. Which vegetables to prefer and what color your gazpacho will be will depend on personal preferences.