In August, when tomatoes are at their peak, I enjoy making cool and refreshing soups like this yellow tomato gazpacho. This recipe, a classic from Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin from her cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, combines a few of summer’s best offerings and comes together in very little time.
This is a recipe that demands the freshest of ingredients, whether your tomatoes were picked right from the garden or bought at the farmers market. Our bright yellow Sweet Gold tomatoes are one of a trio of cherry tomatoes available from Renee’s Garden Seeds that Joe has planted for several seasons now. Sweet Golds have a full, sweet, fruity flavor with little acidity. Their flesh is dense and crack free compared to varieties we have grown in past seasons.
The most time consuming part of the recipe was blanching and peeling the tomatoes. I’m pretty sure Ms. Goin doesn’t make her soup with about 75 yellow cherry tomatoes! But that said, it took less than a minute to blanch the tomatoes and the skins slipped off very easily, once they cooled down a bit. I did not core the tomatoes as called for in the original recipe, because they were small. The original recipe called for red wine vinegar, I substituted a white grapefruit balsamic to emphasize the fruitiness. The blanched tomatoes along with cucumber, jalapeno, cilantro, garlic, vinegar and oil are blended in batches. Since I prefer a smoother texture, I put the soup through a food mill.
As with all cold soups this needs to be chilled until very cold. While you are chilling the soup, it’s time to prepare the garnishes. Finely dice cucumber, red pepper for a nice contrast and some red onion. Season some red cherry tomato halves with salt and pepper and prepare some cilantro leaves. If you don’t like cilantro, substitute some flat leafed parsley. The finishing touch is a drizzle of your best quality extra virgin olive oil.
This recipe is great for entertaining, everything can be made in advance, soup chilled and garnishes prepped. It also could be dressed up with a seared scallop or a poached shrimp on top. Yellow tomato gazpacho can be served family style too. Serve the soup in an attractive container, garnish with tomato halves and pass the diced vegetables on the side.
Yellow Tomato Gazpacho
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 2½lb ripe yellow tomatoes
- 3 small or 1 large cucumber-reserve part for garnish
- ½ jalapeno, seeded and cut in half
- Cilantro or flat leafed parsley sprigs
- 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- 2T red wine vinegar
- 1/3c extra virgin olive oil (optional)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3T diced red or orange sweet pepper
- 3T diced red onion
- 18 small cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- Fine quality extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
Directions
- Blanch the yellow tomatoes in rapidly boiling water until the skins begin to burst, 30-45 seconds. Cool the tomatoes in a bowl of ice water for a few minutes. Once cool enough, use your fingers to slip off the skins. If using small tomatoes, leave them whole, for large tomatoes, core and coarsely chop. Reserve the ice water.
- Reserve about 3T of peeled and seeded cucumber for the garnish. Peel and coarsely chop the rest of the cucumber.
- Place half of the yellow tomatoes, the coarsely chopped cucumber, jalapeno, several cilantro sprigs, garlic, vinegar and olive oil (if using) in a blender with salt and pepper to taste. Process on the lowest speed until the mixture is broken down. Turn the speed to high and puree until the soup is completely smooth. If the soup is too thick, add a little of the reserved ice water. Strain the soup through a fine mesh sieve or a food mill, pressing out as much liquid as possible. Taste for seasoning. Repeat with the rest of the soup ingredients. Chill the soup in the refrigerator until very cold.
- While you are waiting for the soup to chill, dice the cucumber, pepper and red onion. Toss them together in a small bowl. Season the cherry tomatoes halves with salt and pepper To serve, pour the gazpacho into chilled soup bowls and scatter the pepper mixture over the soup. Place 6 cherry tomato halves and a few cilantro leaves at the center of each bowl. Finish each soup with a drizzle of olive oil.
