Gazpacho

Total Time: 15 mins Preparation Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 1 kg very ripe tomato, roughly chopped
• 2 sweet red peppers
• 1 large red onion
• 1 fresh red chili, deseeded and chopped
• 1 cucumber, peeled, deseeded and chopped
• 150 g day-old country bread
• 120 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 250 ml ice-cold water
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 1 small handful fresh mint
• 1 tablespoon tabasco sauce
• 1 lemon
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Recipe

• 1 blitz the bread into breadcrumbs and soak in half the water.
• 2 put aside half a red pepper and half the onion, then roughly chop the remainder and place in a large bowl with the chili, tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, mint and olive oil.
• 3 mix through the breadcrumbs and remainder of the water.
• 4 blitz with either a hand blender or in batches in a conventional blender until smooth (several minutes).
• 5 if you prefer, you can sieve at this point to make the end result very smooth; i personally prefer the little bit of texture.
• 6 stir through the tabasco and juice of half the lemon and season well (i used about three level teaspoons of salt and the same of black pepper).
• 7 taste and adjust lemon, tabasco and seasoning as required.
• 8 chill for at least 4 hours to allow flavours to infuse - it should be served very cold.
• 9 serve alongside a plate containing the remainder of the red pepper and red onion, very finely chopped, and the hard boiled egg for people to sprinkle on to their taste.
• 10 garnish with a few small mint leaves and lemon.