Green Gazpacho Adventure
We had a mostly mild summer in the Bay Area, to the point where I felt a pang about wearing a cardigan on work calls while other areas grappled with searing heat. Several weeks had a local high of 72°F. Mid-July, we donned puffer jackets for outdoor dining in San Francisco.
Then the sun began beating down and our air conditioner rumbled to life. I craved something green and cool.
Enter Plenty, the gorgeous padded vegetarian cookbook with recipes that taught me to improvise and trust my instincts in the kitchen.
My friend Katie M., who’s made nearly every recipe in the book, called the Balkans-inspired green gazpacho a favorite. The ingredient list is inevitably lengthy. But everything was actually pretty easy to find or substitute.
Ottolenghi’s original cold soup calls for lightly toasted walnuts, sherry vinegar, stale white bread, and larger ingredient amounts than would fit in our standard-sized blender. I cut the recipe in half for ease and made adjustments based on personal preferences.
The instructions say to add the last half of the ice cubes and then serve the soup “at once.” I found it was possible to prepare the soup, hold off on the last ice step, and refrigerate the soup in the blender container for a few hours. Then I added and pulsed the ice right before serving. Happily, when we refrigerated leftover soup in a lidded jar, it didn’t need more ice to serve again, just a vigorous shake before pouring.
If you do get double the ingredient amounts, you can make the gazpacho for a crowd or more than once in a week. Alternatively, if this soup ends up not being your thing, the ingredients can easily be repurposed into summery salads and sides.
While much milder and easier to portion out than raw garlic, there’s a garlic paste brand that actually contains lactose, so it’s worth checking the ingredient list if you avoid dairy. Given the small amount of yogurt, you could probably use a plant-based one instead, but I haven’t tested that. Same goes for gluten-free bread and croutons.
The original recipe shows the cold soup served with an olive oil drizzle. If you have nice high-quality olive oil that stands on its own, this is an excellent opportunity to use it. I recently served the soup with lemon-infused olive oil from California that added a pleasant acidic brightness.
Some soups work as either a first course or a main. To me, this one tastes best as a cup-sized appetizer. A little green goes a long way.
Green Gazpacho
Adapted from Plenty
Makes 4 small appetizer servings
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
½ C. olive oil
1.5 Tbsp. Greek yogurt
1 tsp. salt plus more to taste
Sprinkle of white pepper
½ tsp. sugar
1 celery stalk
1 green bell pepper
3 mini Persian cucumbers or 1 English cucumber
1 white sandwich bread slice
1 small jalapeño (optional)
1 garlic clove or 1 teaspoon garlic paste
¾ C. pecan halves
Approx. 3 oz. fresh baby spinach
½ C. (10g) fresh basil leaves
Approx. 1 Tbsp. Italian parsley
4 to 5 standard-sized ice cubes
¼ C. water
Croutons (optional)
High-quality olive oil to finish (optional)
Toast the bread slice, let cool, and then trim off the crusts. Rinse and seed the bell pepper, then cut into chunks. Peel the cucumber or cucumbers and cut into large chunks. Peel and de-germ the garlic, if using fresh, or measure out the garlic paste. Rinse the parsley. Trim and roughly chop the celery. Remove seeds and stem from jalapeño, if using.
Add the vinegar, olive oil, yogurt, salt, white pepper, and sugar to the base of a blender. Add the celery, green pepper, cucumbers, toasted bread, jalapeño, garlic, pecans, spinach, basil, and Italian parsley as well.
Add ¼ C. cold water. Blitz everything until smooth, periodically pausing to push the ingredients down with a wooden spoon if necessary.
Taste and sprinkle in more salt if needed.
Make Ahead: At this point, you can take the base off the blender with the lid on and refrigerate the soup for a couple hours.
To Serve: Add the ice cubes and pulse a few times to crush them a little. Pour the soup into small bowls or cups and top with several optional croutons. Can finish with a little olive oil, if you’d like. Refrigerate leftovers.
