They had beautiful golden yellow tomatoes at the farmer’s market yesterday and I went a little crazy. There’s nothing like the smell of a real, grown-in-the-earth tomato. It brings back childhood memories of going out to the garden to pick tomatoes for supper, standing barefoot in the rough ground, and brushing the dirt off a sun-warmed tomato to breathe in that pungent tomato smell. The scent of a tomato is unique – it reminds me of geraniums, or maybe rosemary, but it clears the palate with one deep inhalation. It is so pure and so fresh.
There are so many truly great gazpacho recipes, but using yellow tomatoes makes this one a little sweeter, and I chopped the other ingredients finely so that their texture and color can be swept in as desired. I served the soup two different ways, and you can decide which one you prefer: the first consists of pureed tomatoes, with a healthy dollop of the other ingredients centered in the middle. This keeps the bright yellow color of the soup intact. The other method is to mix it all together in a multi-colored mélange of flavors. It will taste the same (great!) either way.
Yellow Tomato Gazpacho
Serves: 6
Prep time: 40 minutes, plus one hour for soup to cool in refrigerator
Ingredients
- 8 large yellow tomatoes
- 1 seedless cucumber, halved and finely chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and finely chopped
- 1 jalapeno pepper, cored seeded and finely chopped
- ½ cup cilantro leaves, finely chopped
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
To make the yellow tomato juice:
Directions
- Cut 6 of the 8 tomatoes into small pieces and add celery, sugar and ½ teaspoon salt.
- Allow tomatoes to simmer for 30 minutes or until they are soft and juicy.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- Strain and push tomato pulp through a fine sieve.
- This should yield 3 cups of juice.
- Allow juice to cool completely in refrigerator.
- Chop cucumbers, remaining yellow tomatoes, peppers and onions in a food processor, but do not let them become pureed.
- Combine chopped vegetables in a large bowl and add olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
- For the brightest yellow gazpacho, mound the chopped vegetables into a bowl and pour the chilled tomato juice around them, and serve – or combine all ingredients and stir until well mixed.
- This will yield a chunkier, more colorful version of the gazpacho.
2 Comments