Gazpacho Soup
6-8 medium tomatoes or 4-5 large
1 large regular cucumber, peeled & finely diced (or ½ of an English cucumber, finely diced)
1 medium Spanish or Vidalia onion, finely diced
1 medium green and 1 medium red pepper, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ½ cups Tomato juice or V8 (I use V8)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp white wine
¾ tsp Tabasco sauce
S & P to taste
Sour cream for garnish (if you like)
1. Peel and seed tomatoes and place tomato pulp in blender or food processor add the garlic. Purée tomatoes with garlic, until smooth.
2. If using a regular cucumber, peel it if the skin is tough; when using an English cucumber, I leave a little of the peel on as long as it doesn’t have any blemishes on it.
3. Add ¾ of the diced veggies to the mixture and pulse until combined: (you can make this as smooth or as chunky as you like. If you want the food processor to do the work for you; just roughly chop the veggies and add all of them into the food processor with the tomatoes and pulse until it is the consistency you like.) If you do it this way, reserve a chunk of each of the veggies and dice finely for step # 6.
4. Pour into a large bowl and mix in V8 juice, lemon juice, wine vinegar, wine, Tabasco sauce. Taste and then add S&P if needed.
5. Chill until ready to serve.
6. Combine the remaining ¼ of the diced veggies (cucumber, both peppers and onion) and chill until ready to serve.
7. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a dollop of sour cream and spoonful of the diced veggies and enjoy!
*Note from Anna* If you are blanching the tomatoes to peel them, make sure you put them into ice water as soon as possible. The tomatoes are not supposed to be cooked in this recipe. When I make Gazpacho, I take the tomato peel after I am finished dicing everything and put all of the peel into my food processor with a little of the V8 juice (just a few Tbsp) and process the peel for 2 or 3 minutes until it is completely puréed. It is like making tomato paste! Add this to the soup, it really adds to the flavour. I only do this with really ripe red tomatoes.
I received this recipe from Anna