I have an unusual way of presenting gazpacho for special occasions on the hottest summer days.
The liquids can be prepared the day before and kept covered in the fridge, but the chopping needs to be done only a few hours before due to prevent oxidation of the surfaces. I separate the red white and green ingredients: the white of cucumber flesh, crushed garlic, small amount of white onion, white wine vinegar - cool, sweet, slightly sharp and sour green sweet peppers, green skins of cucumber, green of spring onions, fresh ground black pepper, lots of parsley, virgin olive oil - sweet, slightly bitter and slightly hot red sweet pepper, a touch of birds-eye chilli minus the seeds, very ripe red tomatoes, some tomato-concentrate. Sweet, salty and just edgy hot. (no salt added because the concentrate is very salty)
For each set, I chop half the ingredients into pea-sized cubes and blend the other half into a smooth liquid of good soupy consistency. Keeping some of the cubes aside, in three large bowls, I add each set of cubes into their matching liquid.
I like to use plain dark ultramarine-glazed pottery bowls for serving, rounded Japanese shape, 6 inches diameter. Failing this, using the plainest bowls possible so that the food presents as the star. Roll two sheets of clear acetate into cylinders, one 3" in diameter, the other 4.5", and tape them shut. Depending on the colour of the bowl, choose the colour of the liquid with the best contrast. Set the larges cylinder in a bowl. Pour in the first colour around the outside of the cylinder. Set the small cylinder inside the first. Pour the second liquid in between the two tubes. Pour the third liquid into the centre. Now lift out the large and then the small cylinders. Rinse clean and repeat with all the bowls depending on the number needed. Serve cool or cold.
Serve with thin wholemeal toast or sesame crisps on the side.
Sprinkle the remaining chopped pieces on the top surface. Here you can play a bit. I like to keep the colours matching, but one could aim for contrast.
Although it would no longer be a gazpacho, it would be possible to vary this theme for other colour effects. Blue cabbage, violets and cornflowers. Beetroot, red cabbage, cherries, rosehip, rosewater and rose petals. Yellow sweet peppers, yellow squash, tamarind and a touch of tumeric, with yellow nasturtium flowers as decoration. Or a theme of earth colours - browns of mushrooms, creams of potatoes etc.
Gazpacho is one of the most popular dishes in Spain - has been for over four hundred years. Nobody else makes my version because they've never experienced this soup presented as rings of colour; I really did invent it. Yep - I understand that most people wouldn't want to go to that much trouble - but that's exactly why I do it For me, cooking is an act of love. It's a way to show my friends how I feel.
Of course, yummy, healthy food can be very simple. All it takes is fresh ingredients.
This post was edited by inky at May 28, 2019 9:53 AM MDT
Lots of years ago I started using oatmeal as a filler for meat loaf and vegetable casseroles, particularly squash. I had never heard of anyone doing that but recently did read of using it for meat loaf. I never told people because some, like my own kids, would not want to eat it. I don't like oatmeal as a cooked mush but I do love oatmeal cookies and like it in meatloaf or meatballs and in some vegetable casseroles. It's so nutritious and I am still, at my age, trying to keep from being anemic. My numbers put me at borderline. I take vitamins but don't like to take, and don't take iron. The oatmeal helps with that.
I grew up with oatmeal in my meatloaf. My parents used it every time as a filler -- the Quaker Oats recipe. It's still my favorite meatloaf recipe of those I've tasted, maybe partly because I associate it with growing up around the dinner table/whatever. :)
inky 