Gazpacho soup

[Pierre ZFP]

No I don't mean Rimmer's last words, nor do I think it is particularly French but anyway....

I love this stuff but the shop bought version has far too much salt in it for me so I decided to make some.

I have a lot of French work colleagues and they suggested a list of ingredients as long as your arm

Wishing to keep it simple and based on what I had in the cupboard and fridge I made

Fresh ripe tomatoes

red pepper

onion

half a cucumber

carton of passata

olive oil

little salt

lots of pepper

little chilli

Blitz the whole lot together - delicious [:P]

But here's the odd thing, when I made it, it was the consistency of thick soup, fine.  After a couple of hours in the fridge it turned almost solid like there was gelatine or something setting it.

Still tasted great though

[NormanH]

A tip is to make som cubes of iced tomato juice with either Tabasco or Worcester sauce to taste, and use those to chill it when served rather than plain water ones.

That way they don't dilute the soup as they melt..

[idun]

My oh my, your base for this is far more complicated than mine.

In summer I use fresh tomatoes about 500grs, and a box of passata, a small onion a clove of garlic, some olive oil, juice from one lemon, salt and pepper. I blitz and seive.

All the other stuff including usually some red onion, I chop finely and we put into this 'soup'. No wonder yours is thick blitzing all that stuff together.

I am a great one for seiving many soups, if it is liquidised, I like them like a velouté and not feel 'bits' in my mouth.

[Pierre ZFP]

I didn't think it was too complicated, I just had some fresh stuff in the fridge I wanted to use up before I go away for a few days.

It was really smooth when I had finished going at it with a hand blender !

It was just odd how it changed into a shiny solid, a bit like tomato blancmange

It would look really good served up in glasses, bet I couldn't do it again though

Good tip with the tomato cubes Norm, I will remember that, thanks