The other day we attended a cooking class offered by the LCBO. The instructor was Bruce Worden.
After the class I posted pics and blogged about it. Rob asked me to post the recipe for the Peach Gazpacho.
[gahz-PAH-choh] is a refreshingly cold, summertime soup hailing from the Andalusia region in southern Spain. This uncooked soup is usually made from a pureed mixture of fresh tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, onions, celery, cucumber, bread crumbs, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and sometimes lemon juice. Gazpacho can be a meal in itself, particularly when extra fresh vegetables such as sliced celery, green onion, cucumber and green pepper are added.
Lately though Gazpacho has almost become a slang term to mean any kind of chilled soup, hence this version.
There are three separate parts to this recipe:
Lemon Ice
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup slivered fresh lemon peel (1/2x1/8 inch)
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1. Measure water and sugar into 2-quart saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Remove from heat; cool to room temperature.
2. Stir lemon peel and juice into cooled mixture; pour into 9 x 5 x 3-inch metal loaf pan. Freeze about 3 hours, stirring every 1/2 hour and scraping crystals from edges of pan.
Note: this will make far more than you need!
Gazpacho
Ingredients:
6 ripe peaches (roughly chopped WITH the skin)
1 English Cucumber, peeled and seeded (even thought these cucumbers are seedless remove the core where the seeds would be as this part contains a fair bit of bitter moisture - who knew?)
1 small sweet red pepper (seeded and roughly chopped)
1/4 sweet onion (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 small red chili (seeded and finely chopped)
1 Celery Stalk (chopped)
Directions:
1. Place all chopped vegetables and the peaches in a food processor. Puree. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and sugar. Chill thoroughly.
Thai Basil Oil
Ingredients:
2 sprigs of Thai basil
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
Directions:
1. Chop the basil leaves (chiffonade) and place in a small glass dish. Pour the oil over the basil. Let sit for about 30 minutes to allow the flavour to develop.
To serve: Pour a portion of the gazpacho into a glass dish (we used martini glasses). Place a spoon of the lemon ice in the centre of the soup. Drizzle with the Thai basil infused oil.
The soup is light and refreshing. The inclusion of the lemon ice and Thai basil infused oil is great - adding some wonderful subtlety of flavours.
Enjoy!
Thank you so much for posting this - it is definitely something that I want to try.
Posted by: Robert | August 26, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Enjoy Rob - just make sure that you use the freshest and most ripe ingredients that you can find!
Posted by: Jerry | August 26, 2007 at 11:20 AM