Almond Gazpacho

I made this the other day at school for another team’s 5-course tasting menu.

Some things to know about this dish: It is not a true gazpacho. Classic Gazpacho is a tomato based soup, thickened with bread and is served cold. There are a lot of variations of gazpacho that I really like (peach and almond are my two favorite), but besides being thickened with bread and having a slightly acidic taste, they are really only gazpacho style soups because they don’t have tomato in them.

Anyways, down to the good stuff.

The thing I like about this dish is it’s flexability. You can do almost anything with it because it is so simple. For example, you can swap out the almonds for hazel nuts or pecans, you can play around with salt-vinegar ratios, or you can change the vinegar type completely to give it a different flavor profile.

Here are the ingredients I  used.

1 part Almonds, plain

1 part Bread plus a little extra for the adjusting of thickness

Red wine vinegar

Salt

Grapes

Garlic, whole cloves

Grape juice from peeled grapes.

Extra Virgin olive oil

Mineral water (I don’t know why, but it just tastes better)

The process may seem tedious, but it is for good purpose.

I started out by combing the almonds, garlic, and enough mineral water to cover. I brought that to a boil and strained it out. I added a fresh cup of mineral water to the drained almonds and brought it to a boil again. I then strained it out one more time. The purpose of the boiling and straining is to mellow out the garlic and almonds a little. That way there is no bitter taste in the almonds, and the garlic isn’t nearly as pungent.

After that, I added the almonds, garlic, and more fresh mineral water to a blender. In addition to the above-mentioned ingredients, I added a little red wine vinegar. I blended it all together, adding mineral water as necessary. When it was starting to get smoother in texture, I started adding olive oil slowly to emulsify it with the other liquid.

When it was all done, I adjusted the taste with red wine vinegar and salt, and stuck it in the fridge to chill.

For garnish, I did a couple of pretty cool things. First, I made some Smoked paprika almonds, which contrasted and balanced really nicely with the subtle flavor of the gazpacho.

This was pretty simple, but really good. To make infused oils, I take some E.V.O.O. and heat it up to exactly 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Right when it reaches that point, You throw in whatever flavor you want (in this case, I used smoked paprika, but you can use garlic, thyme, rosemary, etc.).

After I made the oil, I poured it over some sliced almonds and let it cool. I also added a little bit of raw paprika to give it a slightly spicy and smoky flavor profile.

They came out looking really freaking cool (and they tasted good too!).

For the rest of the garnish, I just sliced some grapes in half and made it all pretty like. Here is the final product!

Thanks for reading! Check out my other posts in the archives (to the left of the page)

You can also follow me on twitter @RookieChef or tweet from this page (also on the right)

-Tim

P.S. I got a third degree burn on my hand, so im not allowed to cook for a week. dang it.... Doctors orders.....