GAZPACHO ANDALUZ WITH CRISPY HAM
RECIPE: Gazpacho Andaluz with Crisped Ham
Adapted from saveur.com. To make vegetarian or vegan, simply omit the crisped ham. Serves 4.
This is the classic Spanish gazpacho, originating in the southern region of Spain called Andalusia, home to all the traditional ingredients: its vegetables, sherry vinegar and, in this recipe, jamón serrano.
Ingredients
6-8 slices jamón serrano (or prosciutto)
1 large slice stale country-style bread, about 1-inch thick, crusts removed
2 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
2 pounds very ripe tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1/2 cup Spanish extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Other optional garnishes of green pepper, seeded and finely chopped; cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped; 1 cup 1/2 inch croutons; small white onion, peeled and finely chopped; 1 small tomato, seeded and finely chopped
Directions
To a small bowl, add the bread and enough cold water to submerge. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes.
Make the crispy ham: preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place a wire rack on a large baking sheet. (Alternatively, if you don’t have a rack, you can roast the ham slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet.) Arrange the jamón serrano slices in a single layer on the rack and roast until quite crisp, 6-8 minutes. When cool enough to handle, roughly crumble the ham and set it aside.
Use your hands to squeeze all of the moisture out of the bread, discarding any soaking liquid. Place the bread in the bowl of a food processor, then add the cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and 1 cup cold water. Process until very smooth. Place a strainer (such as a “china cap”) over a large bowl and strain the vegetable purée, pressing on the solids with the back of a wooden spoon to make a completely smooth soup. Season to taste with salt, then cover and refrigerate for at least 2 or up to 24 hours.
Serve in soup bowls, garnished with swirls of more olive oil, bits of the crisped ham and any or all of the optional garnishes to the side.
The ancient Romans prefigured our modern summer soup called gazpacho. They took a pestle and mortar and pounded together stale bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and water and made of the mix a sort of room temperature potage.
After Columbus introduced the tomato to Europe, in the very late 1400s, the Spaniards added the sweet red fruit (and other vegetables such as the cucumber and onion) to this Roman “gazpacho” and sent forth to the world this quintessential hot-weather dinnertime starter and refreshment course.
The word “gazpacho” may come from the Latin “caspa,” one meaning of which is “fragments,” and also from the Hebrew “gazaz,” meaning “to clip” (as into small pieces), much in the way we talk about “chopped salad.” The influence of the vegetable-heavy cooking of Spanish Sephardic Jews on the history of gazpacho is likely significant.
But what was heretofore pounded by pestle and mortar is now nearly universally blended in a food processor or blender, although it forever remains a use for day-old bread. (Many gazpacho recipes, including one here, eschew the use of bread in order to highlight the vegetable ingredients, but stale bread and at least the idea of gazpacho are irrevocably bound together).
The recipes here is for a traditional Spanish gazpacho, that is, a silken smooth, un-chunky gazpacho. You may reintroduce chunks of vegetable by serving garnishes to individual servings of any gazpacho in the form of wee cubes of cucumber, bell pepper, capsicum (spicy) pepper, tomato, onion or scallion, even avocado, melon, or chopped hard-cooked egg.
More gazpacho recipes: for White Gazpacho; for Gazpacho Amarillo (Yellow Gazpacho)
Wine Pairings and why: It seems superfluous (right down to the Latin roots of that word) to drink wine with soup, as though one liquid needed or should pair with another, especially if the soup is cold. Most wines and soups don’t taste great together because, with little to play off each other as they are so alike texturally, they don’t feel great together. However, texture matters—on either side—and hence changes the relationship. If the wine is heavy, even alcoholic, such as sherry or Madeira, even a broth pairs well. If the soup is thick, such as this recipe’s is, then a substantial wine, somewhat high in alcohol (it adds “weight” to the wine) is a textural contrast. A sherry will do nicely here: anything from a dry fino to a Verdelho, even a white Porto.