Gazpacho
or What to Do when All Your Vegetables Ripen at the Same Time
By Eleanor Bradshaw
In not too many more weeks, summer gardens will begin producing, and farmers
markets around the country will be burgeoning with beautiful, locally grown
fresh vegetables. If you are looking for a wise use for your fresh produce
that is not only delicious, but healthful and very low calorie, make a
batch of gazpacho. It will be a welcome addition to a summer lunch or
supper.
I titled this particular recipe, Gazpacho - The Real Stuff, because it comes
closest to duplicating the first, and best, gazpacho I ever sampled.
Depending upon the size of the vegetables you use, this recipe makes around
12 cups. And since it refrigerates well, you can enjoy it for several days.
Should you be counting calories, nutritional information is listed for this
recipe in Grandma's Cookbook. You will be happy to know, though, that it
weighs in at only about 61 calories and less than 3 grams of fat per one-cup
serving, if you can limit yourself to one cup. But with those statistics,
you can have two cups and not feel guilty.
So here's the recipe. Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients.
All you have to do is a little rough chopping.
Gazpacho
- 46 oz. Tomato juice (large can)
- 1 Medium onion, chopped
- 2 Large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 Green pepper, chopped
- 1 Cucumber, peeled, seeded, chopped
- 2 Scallions or green onions, chopped
- 2 Large cloves of garlic, crushed
- ¼ C Fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
- 2 T Olive oil
- 2 T Fresh lime juice
- 2 T Red wine vinegar
- 1-½ T Fresh lemon juice
- 1 t Dried whole tarragon
- 1 t Dried whole basil
- 1 t Ground cumin
- 1 t Honey
- ½ t Salt
- ¼ t Freshly ground black pepper
- Dash of Tabasco sauce
First of all, use the freshest, best vegetables you can find. And don't try
to get by with reconstituted lemon and lime juice. Use fresh.
Next, there are some ingredients in good gazpacho that can be omitted, and
you will still have a dish that can be called gazpacho. You can, for
instance, get along without the basil. If you don't have any tarragon on
hand, you can use (in fact, this is really quite good) Tarragon vinegar
instead of red wine vinegar. And although I practically have to bite my
tongue in saying this, you can substitute parsley for cilantro if you are
one of those unfortunate people who just cannot abide the taste of cilantro.
Additionally, you can lower the sodium per serving from 332 mg. to 237 mg.
by omitting the salt. That's the way I make it, and I don't miss the salt.
But your own personal preferences should rule here. You can mix it up,
taste it, and add salt if you like.
Once you have assembled all your ingredients in a very large
non-metallic bowl, stir the mixture well. Then begin putting it through
the blender or food processor in batches. Just pulse a few times. You
don't want to puree this; let it retain a bit of chunky texture.
You will probably need your largest plastic container to hold and
refrigerate the gazpacho. It should be refrigerated for at least two hours
before serving.
Restaurants, especially those in northern states, have begun serving
gazpacho with croutons and sour cream and whatever else they can dream up.
For the purist, however, no such gilding of the lily is necessary or desired.
Finally, I don't always wait until summer to make gazpacho. As long as I
can get halfway decent tomatoes and cucumbers, I will make a batch if I get
my taste up for it. A bowl of gazpacho with a nice piece of French or
Italian bread is a terrific light lunch.
Here's the link to the recipe in Grandma's Cookbook with the nutritional
information:
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