Creamy Tomato Gazpacho

By Iron Chef Leftovers

With the extremely late arrival of summer in Seattle this year, all of my tomato plants ended up ripening at once instead of in stages. As a result, I had more tomatoes than I could possibly use, so after giving away a bunch of them, I was looking for new and exciting ways to use them (caprese salad is nice, but you can only eat it so many times before you end up getting bored of it, no matter how good the tomatoes).

I recently saw an episode of America’s Test Kitchen where they made Andalusian Tomato Gazpacho. It was an easy recipe, and really involves less than 10 minutes of hands on time to make, so I decided to give it a shot, with a few modifications.

The Software
2 lbs. tomatoes
1/2 red onion
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 cucumber
1 anaheim chili
2 tablespoons verjus (or sherry or red wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 cup of good extra virgin olive oil
1 slice good sandwich bread
2 sprigs of fresh oregano, stems removed.

The Soup
Seed the peppers and cucumber and remove the core from the tomatoes (leave the seeds). Roughly chop all of the vegetables into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces, place in a bowl and toss with salt. Transfer the vegetables to a fine mesh strainer and sit over the bowl for 1 hour to allow some of the liquid to be removed from the veggies. After an hour, add the bread to the liquid and allow to absorb as much of it as it will in about 1 minute (don’t worry if there is leftover liquid). Add half of the veggies, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, half of the bread and 1/2 of the oregano to a blender. Blend for about 30 seconds. With the blender running, slowly drizzle in 1/4 cup of olive oil. Once it is all incorporated, blend for an additional 2 minutes. Push the liquid through a fine mesh strainer. Repeat with the remaining ingredients, adding any leftover liquid from the veggies that were sitting over the bowl. Refrigerate for a couple of hours (overnight is better). Taste, adding salt and pepper if necessary and serve cold.

Notes
I used verjus since the tomatoes were extremely sweet, so it cut the sweetness. You could probably use just about any kind of vinegar. I ended up using a combination of tomatoes since that is what I had on hand, but you can use whatever type of tomato you choose. The chili is optional – remove it if you don’t like chilis or add any other chili if you like something hotter. Don’t skip the salting – it removes the liquid from the vegetables. I garnished the soup when I served it with some diced tomatoes, diced chilies, a couple grinds of black pepper and a drizzle of red wine vinegar and olive oil. Some fresh herbs, onions, croutons, crème fraiche or goat cheese would probably work well also. This soup can probably be heated and served warm and be just as tasty.

I figure that I am going to try this recipe with the green tomatoes that are left on the vines since I doubt that they will ripen as fall is upon us. If you have green tomatoes and don’t know what to do with them, Green Tomato Salsa is wonderful and they can be pickled also. If you can’t be bothered with them, just give them to me, I would be happy to use them.