Slow Lifestyle: Salmorejo

Salmorejo from Cordoba may not be very Nordic, but with the heat it is getting, it is one of my favorite dishes for Summer. I am a salmorejo fan, I like it more than gazpacho, I also like the garlic to be noticeable and accompany it with crispy ham. Today I share with you the sweetandsour recipe. If you didn't know this blog, you can't miss it, Virginia makes delicious recipes and you want to eat her photographs. Below is the recipe for their Cordoban salmorejo:

INGREDIENTS : (SERVES 4-6)

• 1 kg. very red but firm ripe tomatoes
• 150 gr. crumbs of white bread from the previous day (if possible Telera bread)
• 125 gr of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 30 gr. sherry wine vinegar
• 1-2 cloves of garlic without the germ

For the garnish:

• 4 boiled eggs (separated yolk from white and chopped both very finely)
• Very finely chopped Iberian ham or shavings
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• Arugula sprouts to decorate

PREPARATION:

"We clean the tomatoes well, remove the stem and submerge them for a few seconds in a pot that we will have prepared with boiling water. We extract it with a slotted spoon from the pot, and take it to a bowl that we will have previously prepared with ice water and ice to Cut the cooking. Now it will be very easy to remove the skin with the help of a pick or small knife.

If we want to avoid all this prior work so that our salmorejo does not have traces of skin, it is as easy as straining the preparation before adding the oil and letting it cool.

Once we have the tomatoes without skin, we chop them. We add the chopped bread crumbs, the garlic clove, the salt and the vinegar. We blend with a hand blender or with a food processor until we obtain a creamy but smooth texture. Depending on the power of our blender, it will take more or less time.

We strain the preparation if we see that there are still traces of skin or simply if we have not previously peeled the tomatoes.

Pour it back into the bowl and with the mixer running at low speed, add the oil in a stream.

We put it in a jar and put it in the refrigerator to cool. The cold is essential, both for the freshness and for the thicker texture it gives.

While the salmorejo cools, prepare the garnish:

We start by cooking the eggs. To do this, we take the eggs out of the refrigerator so that they are tempered and put them in a saucepan with water from the time with a pinch of salt. The salt will help us peel them better later. We let the water come to a boil and leave it for 10 minutes. We cool them and peel them.

We separate the white from the yolk, chop both separately very finely and set aside.

Chop the Iberian ham tips with a hand blender.

When serving, we pour a couple of ladles of salmorejo into each bowl and decorate with the yolk and white of the finely chopped boiled egg, and with some crumbs or shavings of Iberian ham.

We add a splash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the preparation. Very important

Absolutely delicious, refreshing and simple."