Salmorejo – Spanish Chilled Tomato Soup

Salmorejo – Spanish Chilled Tomato Soup is the type of easy dinner yu can prepare when you want a real Spanish fiesta dinner, late and on a hot summer’s evening.

When you get towards your late twenties, certain things like going out for dinner at nine thirty in the evening or staying out until midnight on a Monday are not even registered thoughts because you know your job will be unbearable thanks to a lack of sleep the following morning.

Here in London it is peak tourist season and somehow thanks to my youthful life I manage to continue making friends who are passing through for a short time and all are in their early twenties who care more for life experiences than sleep and how you’ll feel in the morning (usually because they’re on vacation they get to sleep in).

So on Monday in unusual fashion I gave in to the peer pressure of staying on for a drink after dinner and before I knew it I was walking in the door of my apartment at midnight. Midnight on a Monday.

I know, in Spain eating dinner at nine thirty at night is standard, but so are siestas. And currently London is as hot as a Spanish spring where taking the bus is a much smarter way to get around with the tube being an unbearable sauna. It’s so hot that walking to work makes you beg for a cup of ice upon arrival into the office.

So in favor of dinner in the Spanish way here is a soup that you can make without touching the stove. It’s filling to the point that eating a bowl of Salmorejo for lunch keeps me satisfied most of the afternoon. The Spanish have it right and this recipe proves it.

How to prepare Salmorejo – Spanish Chilled Tomato Soup

• Place into a bowl: Throw the tomatoes, baguette, onion and garlic into a large bowl and cover with boiling water, allowing to sit.
• Drain: Drain all but 1 cup of the water.
• Blend: Place the drained ingredients, the cup of water and vinegar in a blender and blend until sooth.
• Serve: Pour into your serving bowls and top with a handful of finely cubed parma ham and hardboiled eggs. Enjoy!

Tips for the best Salmorejo – Spanish Chilled Tomato Soup

Bowl: The type of bowl needed for the quantity of tomatoes and other ingredients to soak and lightly cook needs to be quite large, if you don’t have a bowl big enough you can definitely pop all ingredients and the boiling water into a pot.

Parma ham sub: The parma ham adds necessary saltiness to this soup, if you cannot source it then bacon is a great salty sub here.

Onion flavor: The onion is only slightly cooked in this dish so does add quite a strong flavor that leans more towards raw onion, if you don’t like that flavor you could lightly cook the onion prior to soaking the ingredients.

More Spanish dishes you’ll enjoy

Catalan Bocadillo

Huevos Rotos – Broken Eggs

Leche Frita – Spanish Fried Milk

Salmorejo – Spanish Chilled Tomato Soup
Adapted from Saveur.com
Serves 6

Ingredients:
8 plum tomatoes, halved, cored and seeded
1 small baguette, cut or torn into pieces
1/2 small onion
1 garlic clove
1 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons sherry vinegar
To Serve
80 grams / 2.8 ounces, parma ham, finely chopped
2 hard boiled eggs, finely cubed

Directions:
Place the tomatoes, baguette, onion and garlic clove in a large bowl. Cover with boiling water and set aside for an hour.

Drain the mixture, keeping one cup of the water aside.

Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil and vinegar in a blender and squeeze the baguette pieces of water, adding to the blender along with the kept water.  Add salt and pepper and combine until smooth.

Pour into serving dishes, add the ham and eggs.

Serve.

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