I’ve never cared for vegetables in general until last summer when someone provided me with gezpacho that just exploded into my mouth with fresh flavor. It was the best thing I’ve ever had to eat! Now she won’t give me the recipe!!
It doesn’t have to be the easiest to prepare, although that would be nice. I will have access to fresh veggies. Just hit me with the best recipe in the world for this marvelous creation!
There is a rumor that it may even be good for me!
I have nothing to add but a second request identical to the first in pretty much every way.
Spaniard here, with experience making fresh gazpacho.
First of all, I must tell you that there is not a recipe for “gazpacho” as most people understand the term: At most, you have “guidelines”. There are as many recipes for gazpacho as people making it. The only constants are fresh tomatoes and olive oil. Also, the preparation is ridiculously easy.
The best way to get a nice gazpacho that you will like is to take those “guidelines”, run with them and experiment until you get what you like! 
I will tell you how I myself make gazpacho… BUT… Please do not take what I say as a “recipe” that has to be faithfully followed! Just get the “idea” behind it, and play with it until you get what you like.
So, without further ado, here is how I make gazpacho.
GAZPACHO FOR ROUGHLY 6 PEOPLE:
INGREDIENTS
-About 1 kg (roughly 2 lbs) fresh, ripe tomatoes. The softer the better (without them being too soft, of course).
-A couple of cucumbers
-One green bell pepper, one red bell pepper.
-Half an onion
-A clove or two of garlic
-Hard bread (Bread from yesterday or a few days ago which has become hard). Let’s say about 4 to 5 slices, or 1/3 of a French baguette.
-Olive oil, vinegar, salt to taste.
-Water and, if desired, some ice.
PREPARATION
-Leave the hard bread in a bowl of water for about 15 minutes or so, to get it thoroughly soaked.
-Cut the vegetables in chunks. Keep a few bits of pepper chopped into little cubes to decorate afterwards.
-Put them all in a mixer with a bit of water.
-Shred everything together very finely with the mixer.
-Add the olive oil, the vinegar and the salt to taste (do not skimp on the oil, but watch for the result not to be too oily; careful with the vinegar and the salt to they don’t swamp the taste of the vegetables).
-Mix again for a bit.
-Add the wet bread into the mixer and mix together to make a homogeneous paste. Regulate the liquidity of the result by adding more water if needed. If you want the gazpacho to be “instantly cold”, add ice cubes instead of water and mix.
-Serve into bowls and decorate them with the chopped peppers.
Enjoy and take very cold! Excellent in a hot summer day.
I hope this helps!
Alton Brown did gazpacho on Good Eats, and the recipe worked wonderfully for me.
From an American perspective, no matter what they say about processed foods, dollar for dollar, V8 vegetable juice makes a great base for Gazpacho. Of course you need to load it with fresh tastes and vegetables/fruits. The important thing about gazpacho are the crystaline fresh flavors that gazpacho accentuates come the green of fresh cucumbers, fresh green and red peppers, chilis, and melons. That is the je nais se quois.
Doing the mixer-izer thing JoseB’s way with the softened bread and all is very nice, but if you want a tureen of yummy gazpacho ready in 15 minutes from the time you get the gazpacho urge, here’s the way to do it:
Pour a can of crushed tomatoes into a bowl, add a small can of tomato paste, rinse out both cans with about a canful of water and add the rinsings, dilute with more water if you like a thinner texture.
Cut up scallions (or half an onion if you’re out of scallions), seeded cucumbers, seeded tomatoes, seeded bell peppers, and other fresh vegetables like string beans or snow peas into fairly fine dice. Dump them into the bowl. Add a clove or two of crushed or chopped garlic if you like a strong garlic flavor, or else just throw a halved clove into the bowl and make sure you avoid eating it.
Splash in some lemon juice, olive oil, and balsamic or red wine vinegar. Put in a teaspoon or so of your favorite herbs, especially basil and oregano, and more if they’re fresh instead of dried. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Throw a few ice cubes into the bowl and stir everything up. Try to wait patiently for 10-20 minutes to let the mixture chill and the flavors deepen. Give up after about 5 minutes and start golluping your yummy gazpacho.
I can literally eat a quart or more of this at one go, no lie. Om nom nom nom nom nom gazpacho.
To the basics above, I would add corn and a couple shakes of worchester sauce. Ummm… spicy. Oh and I have to leave out green peppers–they repeat on me unmercifully. Red, yellow or orange are ok.
That’s pretty much how I make mine. I’m always disappointed when I get gazpacho here that is basically chopped vegetables in tomato or tomato-based vegetable juice. It needs the day-old bread for the body and flavor. It also needs a good quality olive oil. My only difference with the recipe as given is I’ll usually garnish it with chopped parsley (or other green herb) at the end.
I also like to include bowls with various additional ingredients to be added at the table to the diner’s taste: chopped hard boiled eggs, ham, cucumbers, peppers.
Do you really just throw the tomatoes in willy nilly?
I tried to make gazpacho once and I found that the tomato part didn’t come out quite… right. I suspected that you need to discard part of the tomato or… something…
Can you really just throw all the ingredients in blender chopper as is?
Yes. I normally at least core them, but it’s not necessary to deseed them or skin them or anything. Some people may prefer it that way, but it doesn’t bother me.
What problem did you have with the gazpacho?
There’s nothing quite like the addition of raw corn cut fresh from the cob. This will counterbalance some of the acid, of course, so add fresh cracked black pepper and maybe a little more green pepper than you would otherwise. I like to put the bread in slices at the bottom of the bowl. Gives you something to “chew” which is much more satisfying, I think.
Alas I no longer remember the problem. All I remember is it didn’t come out quite right, and I wondered if it was because I used the entire tomato. Maybe it came out too watery? That seems to be a logical reason for me to think I shouldn’t use the whole tomato.
Or you can use a fleshier tomato (like plum tomatoes, for instance). Some of those typical garden tomatoes like big boys can get quite watery. If you feel that’s the case, just scoop out the seeds.
Gazpacho soup!
Piping… hot… gazpacho soup!! XD XD
If your problem was that the gazpacho was too watery, you could use some bread, as I mentioned in my description of the way I do gazpacho. I always use whole tomatoes, and never had any particular problem with the soup itself.
Same here. Like I said above, gazpacho without bread just doesn’t seem right to me.
Hmmmm. My Dad just got back from vacation raving about some gezpacho he had. I have never had it before. I’m gonna give it try on Friday night. So is it served chilled or at room temperature?
Also, to the OP; your friend is a dick. Seriously what kind of friend doesn’t share a recipe? I hate recipe hoarders.
I always tend to take it chilled. However, it has to be said that I also tend to make gazpacho in summer, and then when it is really hot. Other people prefer to take their gazpacho at room temperature.
Try to take it chilled, and at room temperature, and then decide what you like most
A way to “control” the temperature of your gazpacho is substituting some ice for the water you use while blending. Change the proportions of ice and water in order to adjust the final temperature of the soup.
I was looking up gazpacho recipes yesterday, there’s lots out there. Except the one I want, of course.
Does anyone have a recipe for one that’s not blended to smithereens?
My introduction to gazpacho (many years ago) was a soup full of big chunks of vegetables instead of a puree. I’m not a huge fan of purees…