WHITE GAZPACHO
RECIPE: White Gazpacho
This is a “bleached” twist on the standard tomato-and-red pepper gazpacho. Adapted from allrecipes.com. Serves 4-8, depending on portion size. Makes about 1 quart/liter.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 cup leeks, white and light-green parts only, thinly sliced crosswise
2 English cucumbers, completely peeled, quartered and chopped
8 green grapes
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds or pine nuts
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt (regular or Greek style)
1 cup sturdy-crumbed stale bread, crusts removed and in cubes
2 tablespoons sherry or cider vinegar (or 3 tablespoons rice vinegar)
1 and 1/2 cups cold water, or more as needed
Salt, plus more to taste
Dill fronds, for garnish
Directions
Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook and stir leeks until soft, 10-15 minutes, taking care not to brown or burn any of the leeks. Remove to a plate and allow to cool.
Place cucumbers in a blender with grapes, almonds, 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, yogurt, bread cubes, vinegar, cooled leeks, and water. Purée until smooth, about 1 minute. Strain through a “china cap” or similar sieve or strainerdsss, gently pushing through some of the solids.
Cover and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight. Taste and season with salt. If desired, add some more vinegar. Serve garnished with dill.
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 Gazpacho Amarillo (Yellow Gazpacho); for traditional Gazpacho Andaluz with Crispy Jamón Serrano
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.