Gazpacho Andaluz

Gazpacho Andaluz is Andalucía's cold soup, built for heat: ripe raw tomatoes, green pepper, cucumber, garlic, bread, sherry vinegar, and olive oil blended until it drinks smooth from a glass. What makes it Andaluz and not salmorejo cordobés is its lightness. Salmorejo is thicker, breadier, and spooned with egg and jamón; gazpacho is sharper, looser, and made to refresh you before the heat wins.

Everything depends on the tomato, then on the oil. Make it only when the tomatoes are worth eating raw. There is no sofrito here, no slow onion base to rescue poor produce; the raw tomato has nowhere to hide. Blend the vegetables and bread until no grit is left, then pour the oil in slowly with the blades running. That emulsion is the method that decides it: it turns crushed vegetables into a silky cold soup instead of red water.

If you're far from Andalucía, no hace falta haber pisado España. Use the ripest local summer tomatoes you can find, Roma or plum if that is what your market has, and a Cubanelle in place of pimiento verde italiano. If the tomatoes taste thin, wait; canned tomato makes another dish. Chill it hard, taste it cold, and adjust salt and vinegar then. Siempre sale, si lo sigues. In my Margin I wrote only this: no warm gazpacho, ever.