It’s been hot and muggy here in Berlin. And no one has air conditioning (well, some of the hotels do, but no one I know who lives here does). So, I’ve been deeply enmeshed in the German summer OCD of opening and closing windows at magical times, sitting in front of the fan, taking cold showers, visiting a lot of museums, and never under any circumstances turning on the oven.
Gazpacho has always been one of those things that never sounds appealing (wet, cold, blended bread? No thank you) but tastes pretty great. And as I was wracking my brain for things to eat that did not need cooking and were not salad, I remembered gazpacho. I just threw in what I had in the frig, and it was fantastic: filling, flavorful, soothing.
No recipe needed; it’s basically a blended salad. Just put in whatever juicy veggies you have, definitely a half an avocado (for 1 big serving or 2 smaller ones), as much allium as you care for (I’ve used green onion and garlic, but red onion would be nice, too) a little salt, a little acid, fill the blender jar about halfway up your veggies with liquid (I used water, but veggie broth would be nice, too), and whirl it up! Bonus points if everything is ice cold from the frig–but if it’s not, you can replace some of the liquid with ice cubes provided you have a strong enough blender. I do not: I have a crappy stick blender, so pre-chilling the ingredients was a must. And I prefer my bread on the side, thank you very much.
The gazpacho was really nice, but the pièce-de-resistance was the dollop of cucumber kimchi on top: cold, spicy, crunchy…mwah! I used this recipe from Bill Kim–it takes 5 minutes to put together and sits for only 2 hours before it’s ready to go.
The Rookery 