Salmorejo

Adapted from José Andrés.

If gazpacho is a liquid salad, salmorejo — the gazpacho that’s specific to Córdoba, Spain — is a liquid tomato sandwich. That’s because there’s much more bread in salmorejo than the Gazpacho Sevillano better known in the U.S. The result is a thicker, more velvety soup. (A great gazpacho sevillano is more silky than velvety.)

Recipes for traditional salmorejo are pretty similar; after all, there are only a few ingredients besides water and salt (tomatoes, bread, garlic, olive oil and usually vinegar), and only one traditional garnish (chopped hard-boiled egg and serrano ham). It’s a soup to tailor to your own tastes, but we couldn’t think of a better starting point than chef José Andrés. The recipe he published in 2017 in Food & Wine uses less vinegar than most of the versions I turned up — most of which use at least a tablespoon to his teaspoon — but we found his proportions to be just perfect. Not surprising, from the chef-owner of arguably the best Spanish restaurant in the country, Jaleo, where it has sometimes been on the menu (including as a sauce for rabbit).

But this is a soup to play with and personalize — adjusting the proportions of bread to tomato (which might be as high as 1:1), adding or subtracting sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar, or veering from traditional garnishes and instead using seafood or vegetables, as described in our July 2020 story.

Note: Unless you have one of those jumbo, high-powered blenders, you’ll probably have to process the ingredients in two batches. My old workhorse blender requires that I put in the tomatoes before the bread; otherwise the bread gums up the blades. We used both red and yellow tomatoes in the version photographed above, which is why it looks more orange than red.

Serves 4.

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into large pieces

1/2 pound crustless rustic white bread (remove the crusts before you weigh it), cubed (about 2 1/2 cups)

2 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing

4 thin slices Serrano ham or prosciutto, torn into 1/2-inch pieces

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (see recipe notes below)

Instructions

1. Working in two batches if necessary, place the tomatoes, bread, garlic, vinegar, salt and 1/2 cup water in the jar of a blender and blitz it till very smooth.

2. With the blender running, slowly pour in the olive oil. Taste for salt level and adjust if necessary. Chill if desired. (The soup can be refrigerated up to 2 days.)

3. When ready to serve, divide the soup among four bowls. Garnish with the ham and eggs, drizzle with a little more olive oil and serve.

Recipe notes

• The Food & Wine recipe calls for 1/2 cup chopped serrano ham; a 2014 Andrés recipe (also in Food & Wine) called for the sliced serrano, which is easier to find (especially in a pandemic). Though it would probably be heresy in Córdoba, our recipe offers prosciutto as a suitable substitute (again, especially in a pandemic).

• The original recipe calls for chilling the soup till it is cold, at least 30 minutes. We tested it twice without chilling and loved it; we found it refreshing enough at room temperature. The original recipe does not specify the amount of salt.

• This recipe assumes knowledge of how to make hard-boiled eggs. Just in case: Use an egg-piercer or thumbtack to pierce a tiny hole in the fat end of the eggs. Submerge them carefully in boiling water, and boil gently for 10 minutes. Transfer the eggs to an ice bath for at least 15 minutes for easiest peeling; otherwise run them under cold water till they cool before peeling.