This is one of my favorite summer recipes. I discovered this dish during my vacation in Andalusia, Spain.
Since then, I prepare this cold soup at least once a week during the warm months.
It’s fresh, nutritious but not heavy, with an amazing creamy texture and flavor.
Tip n. 1: Use very tasty tomatoes. At first, when I attempted this recipe I was very disappointed by its taste which, unfortunately, didn’t bring me back to Andalusia.
Soon I realized I needed tomatoes of the best quality. I made my research and now I use the piccadilly variety coming from Italy.
Tip n. 2: when you have bread leftovers cut them into chunks before they are too hard to cut. You can dry them or even better, keep them in the freezer. This way they will last longer, and since salmorejo is better when it’s a bit cold this will help to lower the temperature.
Anyway after blending, the soup will be too lukewarm. So you should still let it cool down in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
About the topping: in Andalusia, this soup is topped with chopped, boiled eggs and Jamon Serrano. Since I make an effort to reduce my meat consumption I substituted the ham with smoked almonds from my supermarket. They are so delicious, but I believe it’s not the easiest ingredient to find.
Roasted almonds, or croutons, or just eggs will work perfectly fine.
Andalusian Salmorejo
Equipment
- Good blender
Ingredients
- 600 g tomato, cut in half
- 80 g stale or frozen bread, in chunks (see notes)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg, boiled, finely chopped
- roasted almonds, thinly chopped (or smoked almonds, see blog post)
Instructions
- Blend the tomatos and add bread, oil, garlic and salt and blend again until very smooth
- Let it rest for about 5 minutes and blend again until you can see that the salmorejo is now very creamy and perfectly blended
- Let it cool down in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
- Serve in a soup dish and place the chopped boiled egg as a topping, and then sprinkle with some roasted (or smoked) almonds
- Drizzle some olive oil and add some pepper
