Chances are, you’ve heard of gazpacho, a cold Spanish soup made from diced or pureed tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. But Spain has other fantastic soups too. We’d heard of ajo blanco (a creamy bread, garlic, and olive oil soup thickened with almonds, often served with fruit), but salmorejo was a new discovery for us. And we love it so much we eat it every time we see it on a menu. Which is A LOT!
Unofficially, salmorejo is a cross between the other two soups, consisting mostly of pureed bread and tomatoes, and significantly thicker than gazpacho. Officially, there are a thousand differences. We won’t get into them here, even though Spaniards are more polite than Italians when people mess with their food. You could probably even make it yourself without getting into any serious trouble.
Salmorejo originates in Cordoba, but probably dates back to the Roman empire (in a variant without the tomatoes, at least until the 16th century). The Moors ate it as well. And – like its other cold cousins – it’s perfect for the hot weather in Andalusia.
Salmorejo is super-easy to make, and rewards experimentation: kinds of bread, relative proportions of tomato and bread, types and amounts of vinegar, etc… As the pictures show, consistencies, garnish, and colour vary: ¡ningun problema!
The taste of salmorejo is sophisticated: silky, salty, tomato-ey, but also tangy and garlicky. Depending on the tomatoes used, it can also be sweet. In Spain you can buy it premade in grocery stores, and that’s not bad either. But you can also make it yourself. (For many of you it’s not the right season, so save it for the hottest day of the year!
Here’s a recipe for four, requiring a blender, special equipment in addition to our kitchen basics. Blanch and peel 2.5 lbs (just over 1.1 kg) of the ripest tomatoes you can find. Soak 1/2 lb (.25 kg) – or a lot less – substantial white bread, without its crusts, in 1T sherry vinegar (5.5 grams); other vinegars will do, and feel free to add more. Then blend, in a blender, with tomatoes, three or more cloves of garlic. Probably you will need to divide this into two batches.
While you are blending, add 1/4 c (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil in a thin stream, or add a lot more. If you are fancy, you can pass the whole thing through a food mill. Or don’t bother. Season lavishly with salt and garnish with tuna, diced hard-boiled egg, or diced serrano ham. Ideally, all three! Vegetarians and vegans might garnish with avocado and/or nuts. We also admire from afar, and close up, the beetroot and avocado variants. The former substitutes beetroot for tomato; the latter adds avocado to the tomatoes.
We could not possibly pick a favourite salmorejo. In fact, we’re still increasing the sample size!
