Salmorejo (chilled tomato soup)

Created: 2011/04/17

Edited: 2012/07/22

This soup has very few ingredients, and it depends on them completely, especially on good tomatoes and good olive oil. Don't substitute different types of vinegar.

Adapted from Spanish-fiestas.com. Serves 4. 7 steps

500g ripe tomatoes	remove skin, chop up (best done with a conical sieve)	Combine. Set the bread aside, blend the wet ingredients, and add the bread to the blender piece by piece until the soup is thick and creamy	Chill soup for a few hours, then serve and garnish.
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
125ml olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
≈150g stale white bread	remove crusts
garnish
2 eggs	hard-boil, slice
Serrano ham	slice thinly

Use a French stick or similar fine white bread. The amount you need will depend on how stale the bread is.

Adjust the seasoning to suit the tomatoes. The seasoning given here is suitable for UK supermarket tomatoes. If you have delicious California heirloom tomatoes, I would use 1/4 the garlic and vinegar. You can add more vinegar once the soup is blended, and you can leave garlic cloves sitting in the soup as it chills.