Spicy gazpacho 27 May 2009
If you like very spicy food, leave the chilli seeds in. Both the chillies and the sherry vinegar can be omitted, but the soup is much more exciting if they're in there.
Serves 4-6
2kg red, ripe tomatoes
6 garlic cloves
1 mild green chilli, deseeded
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
10cm length of cucumber
1 small onion
half green pepper
4 slices of good white bread
50ml sherry vinegar
Core the tomatoes, remove the seeds and jelly from a quarter of them and reserve. Coarsely chop the remaining tomatoes with the garlic and chilli.
Purée the mixture in a blender, then strain and season well with salt and pepper. Stir in the oil, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Peel the cucumber, halve it lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Chop the reserved tomatoes, cucumber, onion and peppers into fine dice.
Dice the bread as fine as you can get it. Put all the garnishes into separate serving bowls. Refrigerate until needed.
When ready to serve, taste the purée: if it tastes too strongly of tomato, thin it out with water. Add more salt and pepper as needed. Stir in the sherry vinegar and serve with the garnishes passed around separately.
This is an edited extract from The Green Kitchen by Richard Ehrlich.
© Will Heap and Jason Lowe
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