The BEST Gazpacho I've Ever Had, Paired With Rosé
Welcome to the dog days of summer (and the start of harvest season, my fellow gardeners!) ☀️
When we get to this point of the season where the heat is more exhausting than exciting, its the perfect time to make my favorite summer soup: GAZPACHO!
School may be in session already (really Reno? Beginning of August?), but summer is definitely not over, my friends. Its a scorching 97 degrees today. So let's not get ahead of ourselves and start dreaming about hot apple cider and pumpkin lattes. We've still got time to enjoy the warm weather that we'll be missing in a few months.
So let's talk cold soup. Sounds a little strange, right? My favorite chilled soup, Gazpacho, doesn't really require any time in the kitchen...or the stove. After I'm done making it (in the short 25 minutes that it takes), I almost feel guilty that I've technically made soup...I get a sort of "that's it?" mentality. Yes, that's it, and with a little time in the fridge to meld the flavors together, this soup erases any sort of "cold soup" reservations you may previously had.
The first time I ever had gazpacho was at Mon Ami Gabi: one of Las Vegas’s staple restaurants that I used to work at. I never had cold soup before and had that same reservation we all have before trying it for the first time. It was the best soup I'd ever had (no joke!) and I made sure to have some every time our chef let me sneak it out of the kitchen.
Although my days working at Mon Ami Gabi are over, I've still craved Gazpacho every summer. I tried numerous recipes claiming to be "authentic Spanish Gazpacho" and was constantly disappointed. But then…I found Mon Ami’s recipe…
The Pairing
Soups are not the easiest dish to pair with wine, and especially difficult for cold soups featuring raw, fairly sweet vegetables 😆
So my friends, this is when we break out the bottle of wine that tastes like a red, drinks like a white and is the best “when in doubt” wine for dinner: Rosé!
Not many other wines will pair well with gazpacho because it has tricky flavors like jalapeno, cilantro, and garlic. But whenever other wines can't stand up to certain flavors, rosé comes in to save the day. It drinks like a white but has characteristics of a red, which makes rosé very versatile. Make sure you pick one that is dry to off-dry (so no white zinfandels, you hear?). Almost every wine-producing region in the world makes rosé, so feel free to be adventurous and pick something new.
If you don't have a bottle of rosé on hand, you can also opt for a bright, acidic white wine with a little weight to it like Chablis, Assyrtiko, Falanghina, Gruner Veltliner, or Sauvignon Blanc.
In the mood for beer? You have lots of choices with gazpacho. Pick a light, slightly fruity beer like a Belgian wit or German Hefeweizen, which will pick up on the acidity from the soup and complement the refreshing nature of the dish. Pilsner will also work nicely, just make sure the beer is not too bitter/hoppy which will overwhelm the gazpacho.
The Recipe
As I said prior, I can't take credit for this gazpacho as it is a recipe shared by Chef John Simmons of Mon Ami Gabi. My biggest advice is to use fresh, farmer's market-type heirloom tomatoes which will give much better flavor than those under-ripe tomatoes you buy at the grocery store. Make the soup in the afternoon and let it chill for a few hours before serving--that gives the soup some time to meld and intensify the flavors. The soup is even better the day after as leftovers!
Gazpacho
Author: Dani
Total time: 25 mins
Serves: 4 large bowls
Ingredients
1 Cup of day-old French bread (or slice bread, if you don't have), torn into pieces
2 1/2 Cups tomato juice, divided
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 Cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
4 medium heirloom tomatoes
2 cucumbers
2 red peppers
2 tsp salt
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 Tbsp cilantro
2 Tbsp parsley
3 garlic cloves (or more if you love garlic)
1 jalapeno, seeds removed
Instructions
Place the torn pieces of bread in a bowl. Pour 1 1/2 Cups of tomato juice, 1/4 Cup olive oil, and the cider vinegar over the bread and stir to combine.
Blanche the tomatoes: fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. Using a sharp knife, make "X" slits onto the bottom of each tomato which will make the skin easy to remove. Once the water in the pot is boiling, plunge the tomatoes into it for about 1 minute. Immediately drain the tomatoes and cover with cold water.
When the tomatoes have cooled enough to touch, peel off the skins. Cut them in half and remove the seeds. Place in a blender.
Next, peel the cucumbers and cut in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds/insides with a spoon and cut into chunks. Cut off the top of the red peppers and remove the inside seeds. Cut into smaller pieces, then add, along with the cucumbers, to the blender.
Add the remaining 1/2 cup of tomato juice and 1/4 cup of olive oil to the blender, then the salt, cilantro, chopped onion, parsley, and garlic cloves. Blend all ingredients together. I had to pulse the blender quite a bit and stir things around quite a lot to accomplish this task.
At this point, my blender was pretty full, so I poured half of the blended mixture into a separate bowl.
Add a few pieces of bread to the blender and blend to thicken the mixture. Continue adding the bread and any residual tomato juice/olive oil until the soup has thickened. Finally, add the jalapeno and blend until incorporated. Soup should be a bit chunky, not watery.
If you had to remove some of the soup because your blender was too small, pour out some of the blended soup into the same bowl, stir, then add some back into the blender and blend. Continue to pour out/return to the blender until the soup in the bowl and the blender have combined and are consistent.
Thirsty For More? Check out these Summer-Friendly Recipes and Pairings
Shrimp Ceviche Tacos + Sauvignon Blanc