Cookbook With Me #7 - White Gazpacho

alexander.alexis (63)in #recipes • 6 years ago (edited)

Intro

According to Wikipedia, Gazpacho has ancient roots. Mine only had bread, water, almonds, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, s&p, and grapes. But I will be googling later for an "ancient roots Gazpacho recipe".

The very white (but non-supremacist) Gazpacho

Feeling gra-py.

This was one of those recipes whose ingredients are so weird that you feel quite confident it's either gonna turn great, or a disaster. Bread and water? That alone sounds soggy. Add almonds and grapes and you're reaching for the bucket.

Did I add this is served cold?

Despite all that, it actually turned out quite nice, and all who tried it liked it!

Here's roughly how it's made, so that you get an idea: The water is basically processed in a blender along with the bread and blanched almonds. This creates a base that tastes quite similar to almond milk. Then you add the rest of the ingredients (except for the slivered almonds and grapes that are added as toppings at the end) and process.

Then the whole thing is put through a strainer and the solids discarded.

This is actually what I don't like about this recipe. You see, I hate waste! You're supposed to just throw away all that perfectly good and very protein-rich almond dry matter. I tried eating it, and it was fine, I guess, but there's so much of it, it wasn't exactly tasty in large doses. So that option is out. You also can't use it for another recipe, because the almond isn't just almond, it's also got bread and garlic and olive oil in it. Unless someone comes up with a recipe that requires powdered almond with garlic taste, it's unusable.

Need some protein.

Removing all that almond also means that the soup is rather lacking in protein, which means it needs to be accompanied with something proteiny. I chose a dip, as I often do when protein is lacking.

When you add the slivered almonds and seedless grapes (couldn't find seedless so I seeded them, which by some peculiarity of English means that I removed, not added, the seeds) to the milk-like base, it's slightly reminiscent of eating cereal. The dish being cold also helps that impression. But it's only a slight one.

And the dish does taste quite nice. But there's another thing, which they actually note in the recipe itself: you can't have too much of it. This is more like a starter. It's not the kind of thing you'd eat to feel full. Its intense taste gets a bit overwhelming.

But when I eat, I like to feel full!

It's also some trouble to make, for something that isn't filling. The whole process or straining the blended soup to separate away the solids is somewhat repetitive if you can't do it all at once, and generally the recipe is a bit too finicky for my taste. Add to that the fact that I also have to make sides separately, and this becomes even less of a regular option: when I add something to my cooking oeuvre, it means it's fast and tastes great and can nourish you completely.

On the plus side, this can be kept in the refrigerator for days, and it's the only soup I know of that you could store in a milk bottle and none would be the wiser.

Verdict

Come back, Gazpacho!

I would file this under "a keeper", but only to make it rarely. And not in the winter. Cold soup in winter = bad idea. The logistics of it make me feel lazy the moment I think about making it again, but I'm pretty sure I'll be missing it dearly in a six-month.