Gazpacho Is Just a Degenerate Case of Salmorejo...

After my long post about my failure to make a good Salmorejo, A. wrote to me in e-mail (she decided it wasn't worth registering with blogger to be able to add comments here -- quite right -- sorry about that) suggesting that the secret was to use better tomatoes.

So I picked up a pound and half of very ripe tomatoes at the farmers market (a block down the street, heh) and let 'em sit around all day before I started cooking again. By the time I got back to them, the tomatoes were very soft and had some blotchy bits and I just threw them away, not wanting to put bad tomatoes into my raw soup!

And of course, when chatting with M. on the phone, I learned that those tomatoes woulda been perfect for a raw tomato soup. Oh, well.

I had another shot at the whole thing, but decided to make the much less viscous gazpacho instead of salmorejo, in the hopes that it might be a bit healthier. My first crack at it had far too few tomatoes and far too much onion and celery and cucumber. After a trip to the supermarket, I hit it with twice as many tomatoes, and now it seems to taste okay.

We'll see how it tastes after another day of cooling and sitting in the fridge, but I'm already feeling pretty good about it. I wonder how this stuff would work if I put it in a Nalgene bottle and took it hiking? I'd be getting my carbs and my cool drink and everything all mixed together.

Heh, given how much garlic I put in this, I might soon find myself hiking alone. :-)