salmorejo cordobes (spanish tomato & bread soup)
Frank Camorra, Movida
4
Andy, the bar manager at Movida, explains this classic cold soup as “The beach cricket of Spain – it screams summer.” For me it’s a celebration of the tomato. Real tomatoes. Sweet, tangy tomatoes at their vine ripened best.
Home gardeners with a surplus of late summer tomatoes and a loaf of stale bread will find this a pleasing solution to their oversupply.
A word of caution however: follow the ingredients and method meticulously as deviations may cause an imbalance of flavours.
This is also a soup from my family’s home in Cordoba – another reason to treat this dish with great respect.
Ingredients
- 1kg vine-ripened, soft tomatoes
- 1 garlic clove
- 250g stale heavy white bread (pasta dura)
- 100ml Mount Zero Frantoio Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus extra for drizzling
- Mount Zero Pink Lake Salt, to taste
- 200ml chilled water
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, diced
- 80g jamón, diced
- Aged sherry vinegar, to taste
Directions
- Purée tomatoes and garlic in a food processor.
- Strain this tomato mixture through a chinois. Discard the skin and seeds.
- Break the bread up into golf ball-sized pieces and place in a large stainless steel bowl. Pour the strained tomato mixture, olive oil, and pink lake salt over the bread.
- Using your hands, squish the tomato mixture into the bread, really working the liquid through. Allow it to stand for 15 minutes, allowing the bread to soak in the liquid.
- Purée the entire mixture again in a food processor, adding water until the soup is the consistency of thick cream and a pleasing salmon pink colour.
- Chill in the fridge, then serve in bowls finished with egg, jamón, a generous drizzle of good olive oil, and a small dash of aged sherry vinegar.
