Salmorejo

I made this soup during the summer when I had an abundance of garden tomatoes. In the past I've always made a gazpacho to use my extra tomatoes. This time around I looked for variations and ran across this soup. Salmorejo is a chilled tomato soup from Spain that is thickened with bread and egg. It's finished with a nice extra virgin olive oil, hard boiled egg, and frequently crispy pancetta.

One of the necessary steps for this soup is the blanching and the peeling of the tomatoes prior to pureeing them. It helps remove the fibers and gives you a smoother finished texture. Additionally when I made this soup I toasted my garlic to give it a slightly charred flavor and added harissa for heat.

As with any soup there are lots of variations you can do to this soup. If you wanted to make if vegan you can omit the egg and thicken it with some roasted garlic instead. Or you could start with a base of anchovy, or render some chorizo until its crispy and use the fat to cook the garlic in, etc. There are many possibilities you can do to make this your own.

Enjoy.

---

Ingredients

• Tomatoes, medium, peeled 8 ea

• Hard boiled Egg* 2 ea

• Bread** 1 loaf

• Harissa 1 T

• Red onion, julienned 1/4 ea

• Smoked Paprika 1 T

• Sherry Vinegar 1 T

• Granulated garlic 2 tsp

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil to taste

• Salt to taste

• Pepper to taste

*If you want to make this soup vegan, omit the hard boiled egg and substitute 2 T roasted garlic puree

**I used a medium side ciabatta loaf and cut off the crust. The amount you use will be dependent on how ripe the tomatoes are.

Garnish

Crispy pancetta, hard boiled egg, extra virgin olive oil

Method of Procedure

1. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil.

2. Score and core your tomatoes as shown in the first picture. The scoring on the underside is important to help peel the skin from the tomato.

3. When boiling, gently place your tomatoes into the water and let sit for about 5 minutes, until the skin starts to peel around. Remove from water and shock in an ice bath.

4. Once cooled remove from water and peel the skin from the tomatoes. It's best to do this over an empty bowl, so catch any of the tomato liquid that comes out.

5. While you're blanching your tomatoes get a place some eggs into a pot of cold water and turn on high.

6. Keeping an eye on the eggs, when it starts boiling reduce it to a simmer and set a timer for 12 minutes.

7. Once the timer has gone off, pour out the hot water and run them under cold water to stop the cooking process.

8. Start a saute pan on high and add some oil.

9. Once the oil is almost to it's smoke point, add fry until it begins to turn brown.

10. Add your julienned red onions, lightly saute, and take of heat.

11. Chop your tomatoes and mix them in a bowl with your spices, sherry vinegar, harissa, and some extra virgin oil.

12. Run everything through a food processor until it is evenly pureed.

13. Add your diced bread cubes and let soak for about twenty minutes.

14. Whisk together, then add your egg. The easiest way to get it into small even pieces is to push it through a fine mesh strainer.

15. Using a blender or a stick blender, run your soup through to make it smooth.

16. Season to taste and serve with crispy pancetta, hard boiled egg, and extra virgin olive oil.