Salmorejo (Spanish Cold Tomato Soup)

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a blue soup bowl full of salmon pink salmorejo garnished with chopped hard boiled egg ham parsley and olive oil

5 from 1 vote

This traditional chilled tomato soup from Cordoba in Andalusia, Spain, needs just 5 ingredients, and is ready in 5 minutes. Top with hard boiled egg and ham to make it into a complete meal.

Servings: people

Author: Helen Best-Shaw

Prep Time10

Total Time10

Ingredients

1 kg vine ripened tomatoes - roughly chopped
200 g rustic white bread - cut into cubes
1 garlic clove - peeled
1 tsp sherry vinegar
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
salt - to taste

To garnish

2 hard boiled eggs - peeled and chopped
4 slices Serrano Ham - or other air dried ham

Metric - USA Cups

Instructions

Mix & Blend - Blend the tomatoes, bread, garlic, and vinegar with about 120ml of water until you have a smooth, thick puree.
You can use a stick blender to do this. If you think that your stick blender is not powerful enough then layer all the ingredients into the bowl and leave for half an hour for the bread to soften.
You may need to add a little more water depending on the ripeness of the tomatoes.
Blitz really well at this stage until smooth
1 kg vine ripened tomatoes, 200 g rustic white bread, 1 garlic clove, 1 tsp sherry vinegar
Add the oil - Slowly drizzle in the olive oil into the tomato mix and slowly blend it in. As the oil emulsifies with the soup it will turn a deep salmon pink, and develop an almost creamy texture.
Over blending at this stage will bruise the olive oil and make it taste bitter, so blend it in slowly.
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil, salt
Chill - Cover, and chill for at least 30 minutes before serving. The flavour will develop with time so if you can, leave it for a couple of hours.
Garnish & Serve - Serve with a garnish of chopped boiled eggs, Serrano ham and an extra drizzle of olive oil.
2 hard boiled eggs, 4 slices Serrano Ham

Notes

Serves 4 a a main, 6 as a starter.

Recipe notes - Ingredients

Tomatoes - these are central to the dish, so you want the best. Ideally vine ripened, as ripe as can be, a selection of different types of tomato, and preferably having never been in the fridge as this robs them of all their flavour. You can also use yellow and orange tomatoes.

Bread – a good rustic style bread with some structure and taste. Ideally white, and without seeds to make the blending easier. You do not want cheap supermarket sliced white bread.

Olive Oil – a strongly flavoured extra virgin olive oil, one from Andalusia would be ideal.

Sherry Vinegar – adds acidity to balance the flavour, and to act as a flavour enhancer. Any white vinegar with some flavour but not too much acidity would work here, as well as a fruity apple cider vinegar.

A regular stick blender should be more than powerful enough to make this recipe, you can also use a food processor or blender.

Storage

Fridge – Keep in a covered container in the fridge for up to 3 days. I remove from the fridge about half an hour before serving, so it is cool, somewhere between fridge and room temperature to serve.

Freezer - Pack into freezer containers and freeze. Allow to defrost and serve. Depending how smoothly blended the soup is it might separate do give it a good stir before serving. When I tested I was astonished that this froze so well.

• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.