Gazpacho

I fell in love with this cold soup many years ago whilst living in Spain during my university days.

I adore roasted peppers and I make sure I roast them for long enough in the oven to get the particular smokey favour I require.

The proportions of the ingredients vary from one home to another….so below is my version which can be adapted and changed by you to your liking.

I don’t use onions simply because they might overpower the taste of the soup.

I am also careful with garlic which I love, but in a raw form it is very hard to digest.

So my solution is to crush a couple of cloves of garlic and leave them in the soup for a good few hours to infuse. That way you will still have the taste of garlic without the unpleasant indigestion it might cause.

Serves 4-6

• 2 large red peppers (you can mix red and green ones)
• 700 ml of passata or 1kg of ripe tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1 peeled cucumber (optional)
• 100 g of white, home-style stale bread, pre-soaked in water (optional)
• salt
• 200-300 ml of cold water (you can always add more if needed)
• 50-70 ml of olive oil
• sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar to taste (initially add just two table spoons and add more if needed)

Start with roasting the peppers. Heat the oven to 220-240 C. Wash and dry the peppers. Brush them with olive oil and put into an oven proof dish.Grill them for 20 minutes on each side.

Leave to cool, peel the skin off and discard any seeds.

Put all the ingredients, apart from the garlic, into a blender or food processor and blend until you achieve a smooth consistency.

Now taste the soup and add more salt, vinegar or water to your liking.

Pour the soup into a bowl, add the crushed garlic, stir well and leave in the fridge to cool for a minimum of 4 hours.

Once you are happy with the temperature and the flavours, discard the crushed garlic and serve the soup while still cold. You can garnish it with chopped cucumber, peppers or crumble some Feta cheese on top as I did.