"Traditional" Gazpacho

Before even beginning, the CC should note that gazpacho does not refer to the just the traditional "cold tomato" soup that is justly famous but really a family of cold soups from Andalusia.

In fact, one of the joys of life emanating from Andalusia is a "gazpacho bianca" made with almonds, garlic and grapes (sounds delicious, doesn't it?)

Secondly, there are as many recipes for "gazpacho" as there are Spanish mamacita's so there will always be some silly sausagey snob who will object to whatever is given below.

In fact, they will scoff at a very specific thing below which is that everything needs to be hand-pounded. Well yes, if the CC had super-ripe tomatoes, and a day to kill but there's reality and there's "reality" (see?!? those scary deconstruction quotes do actually work!)

However, they are not completely wrong. There's a method in their madness in their demand for hand-poundage.

What's given below is what the CC feels is a suitable compromise between spending a day pounding, and just tossing everything in the blender (which would just bring out the howls from the purists, and not give a very good result either, the CC may add.)

Also remember the recipe below is super-approximate so feel free to deviate. Just don't destroy the recipe's soul.

Ingredients

2 lbs tomatoes (left to ripen till nearly over-ripe)
8-10 slices dried bread (read below!)
1 medium spanish onion
1 english cucumber
1 large green bell pepper
1 large red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
champagne vinegar
salt and pepper
olive oil

Recipe

The dried bread is something that is essential, and your gazpacho is only going to be as good as this bread. Ideally, you'd get a traditional sourdough (which will dry out.) This doesn't refer to the crap you get in a supermarket called sourdough. We are talking about bread that is "naturally fermented". (There's a scientific logic here that must wait for a later post.) Otherwise, just get the best baguette or Italian bread you can, cut it into pieces, and let it dry out for a few days.

Prep work

Peel the skin off the bell peppers with a peeler. (yeah! you heard that right!)

Peel the cucumber. (this should not be a surprise.)

Dice half of the bell peppers into uniform squares. Retain the other two halves.

Dice half the onion into the same sized squares. Retain the other half.

Dice half of the cucumber into the same sized squares. Retain the rest (see the pattern?)

Pass all the tomatoes through the finest screen of a food mill. This is labor-intensive work but is totally necessary.

Prep

Take the tomato pulp, the bread slices, the three halves that were not diced (onion, bell peppers, cucumber), the garlic cloves, and a slug of olive oil and blend them in the blender.

Go easy on the garlic. Raw garlic packs a fierce punch so tone it down.

Now, pass this mixture through the finest screen of a food mill a second time. Yep, this is hard work too.

Mix the diced stuff above with this mixture. Add salt, pepper, and the champagne vinegar to taste. There should be a slight vinegarish bite but overall the flavor should be balanced.

Chill and serve.