Badass Gazpacho
This for the poeple that have to suffer 40 Centigrade (105 Fareneheit) heat and above, and to work, and that find themselves working sweating like :cen:, and losing minerals, vitamins, liquid and all, close to collapse when work finishes...
For this, in summer I *always* have a few litres of "Gazpacho" ready in the fridge, today (right now) prepared the first charge.
Gazpacho gives your body back everything you lose in the heat and it refreshes like not even the first beer can, you can easily adjust it to your bodily needs (little salt for high pressure folks, more for th low pressure folks that threaten to faint evry minute during such a hot day), it has vitamines, minerals (and, depending on how you prepare it a good choice of proteines to feed you):
Here is how I do it (a French great cook showed it to me some years ago, I know purists might like it differently, feel free to comment, but for me it works...):
(DISCLAIMER: I am not a chef, so do not ask me how many rations this is for, what calories it has exactly, etc. Also, I will post this for dummies like me who need step-by-step instructions when in the kitchen).
Preparation Time:
30 min (if you have the ingredients cold), else you will have to wait for it to get cold in the fridge (see the tricks section to accelerate the process)
Depending on my needs or the weather I perpare the Gazpacho fairly differntly through the year, but it is always founded on the
BASIC (Primary) INGREDIENTS:
About equal amounts of the following (I usually pepare around 3-5 litres as it is a bit of work you do not want to do everyday, but you want to be able to just pop in for a moment from work, get a bit, and go again), you have to do your own calculations if you need weights.
- Tomatos (a little more); they should be big and ripe, they give the basic taste so select them well
- Cucumber
- Onions (a little less else it might get too bitter); I prefer salad onions as they do not taste so stronly
- green and red peppers; those should be not too ripe, crunchy
- Dry White Bread (rather a little less for color reasons); fresh white bread also works
Then:
- Water (For me the amount to soak the bread is just enough)
- Olive Oil (best quality: Virgen Extra; about 5% seems right, see later in this recepie to find out the exact amount)
- (a little) vinegar (I mix the vinegars: Apple, Red Wine and Balsamico)
Basic spice:
- Salt
- Sugar
- Garlic
- Basil
- Thyme
- Rosemary
Secondary Ingredients (rather optional according to your preferred flavor, not shown in traditional recepies but work for me)
- Prawns
- Tomato Concentrate or Fried Tomato Puree from a can (for color reasons only)
- White or Red Wine
- Cream
----------------
Preparation:
There is some work to be done:
- Peel the tomatos (you do not want the skiin in it): Put them 1-2 minutes in boiling water, then shock them with cold water: The skin will come off easily
- Peel the cucumbers (a potato peeler will do just fine)
- soak the bread in water (cover with water and wait 15 minutes)
- clean the green and red peppers from in- and outside of anything that is not green or red
-
keep one green pepper apart
-
chop everything else down to pieces (1-2 cm size will do, the rest is done by the mixer)
- the pepper you kept apart, chop down to tiny pieces and store away, you will later put it on top of the soup/cream when you serve it
To give you the visual idea:
Now prep your mixer.
(I have a two litre mixer, and here is where I employ a
trick: I never fill it much more than half and do the whole Gazpacho in various separate mixing turns: This allows me to adjust the taste after every round of mixing in e.g. doing one mix turn w/o oil (if I feel it is too much), or with more/less spices, bread, etc.) until the overall comes out the way I like it. Same goes for color (the eye also eats, and Gazpacho for me has to be red: I add the concentrate or the canned tomatos until I have the color I want).
Load your mixer with the relation of the basic ingredients as mentioned above, add salt, oil, vinegar (I use different vinegars for each round of mixing), spice, sugar (1 table spoon per tomato to neutralize the acid), add a little water, and Hit The Button! to create a puree of the ingredients.
Personally, I like it rather raw, i.e. not so creamy with clearly distinguishable pieces of the different ingredients, but you can of cause keep going until you have homogenous cream without such pieces, a soup rather...
If you need the gazpacho ready at once, a good
trick is to crush some ice cubes (wrap into a towel and crush against any hard surface, like a wall or so) and replace the water with them.
You are done! Shove it into the fridge and use it when the temperature is ok (I prefer it rather cold).
But, of cause, there are
Variations:
- If you want it soup style, pass the whole thing through a strainer (rubbing it through with a spoon); this elimiinates any peels or larger pieces and leaves you with a fine creamy result
- Want more proteins? Add some Cream and/or some prawns (whole!)
- Spicy: Add some Chilis, nicely chopeed down to smallest bits (take the white pellets out before)
etc., etc...
Presentation:
When you take it out of the fridge, fry a piece of sandwich or white bread cut into small cubes in little olive oil, mix with the pepper you left apart and serve it with the soup for everyone to add as he likes.
My typical presentation looks like here:
Enjoy!
Rattler
