How to make 'gazpacho con fruta'

One Saturday afternoon we went to visit our Spanish friends, Juan Ramón and Penélope, to do a cooking session. While Paul was making Thai food, Juan Ramón showed us one of his traditional family recipes, gazpacho with fruit. What were I and Penelope doing, you might wonder? We were busy chatting, admiring the skills of our amazing men and drinking tinto de verano, the refreshing mix of red wine and fizzy lemon.

Gazpacho, similar to salmorejo (read about this here), is a traditional Andalusian cold soup that’s just so refreshing to eat on those hot days when it’s over 40C outside. The difference between the two lies in the ingredients. While they both need tomatoes and garlic, swap the bread to cucumber and the oil to apple vinegar when making gazpacho.

Here´s a short description of how to make it.

1.      Throw all the ingredients in a blender, add some salt and mix.

And that’s it! I told you it was short!

Pour it all in a large bowl and leave it to cool down. Serve in a glass or a bowl and decorate with chopped up vegetables. If the tomatoes weren’t juicy enough, you can add some water to it. You might also want to speed up the cooling process with the help of some ice cubes.

Juan Ramón, however, did not stop here. He also threw some small bread pieces in the mixture, together with bits of fruit, namely ripe melon and nectarine. It was great to bite into the big, crunchy fruit pieces!

If you fancy a smoother soup you can pour the original mixture over the bread to soak and blend it all together. You can add the fruit pieces to it, too! The possibilities are endless. Let your imagination run wild!

By the time the soup was ready, Paul finished as well.

Here’s our Thai-Spanish fusion lunch.

¡Qué aprovéche!