Two bowls of deep orange-red gazpacho finished with a thread of olive oil and diced cucumber and pepper, with ripe tomatoes, a halved green pepper and a small dark bottle of vinegar beside them

Sherry Vinegar Gazpacho: The Cold Soup That Is a Salad You Drink

Published 28 Sep 20266 min read

Gazpacho is older than the tomato in Spain. The original was bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and water pounded in a mortar, field food for Andalusian laborers, and the tomato only joined after it crossed the Atlantic and turned the whole thing red. What never changed is the spine of the dish: the vinegar. This version names its bottle, because sherry vinegar is the one that belongs here. It is made in the Jerez region through the same criaderas y solera system that ages sherry itself, drawn only from the oldest casks in the bottom row. The Regulatory Council requires at least 70 grams per liter of acidity, which is why a spoonful lands harder and rounder than ordinary wine vinegar. Our vinegar guide covers the whole shelf, and the which-vinegar-for-what comparison explains why sherry wins in anything Spanish.

Two techniques carry the recipe: the oil is drizzled into the running blender so it emulsifies into something creamy and pale, and the vinegar goes in twice, most of it before chilling and the last spoonful after, because cold mutes taste and a soup seasoned warm always tastes flat from the fridge.

Ingredients

1 kg (2 1/4 lb) ripe tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped; the deepest red ones in the market
1 small cucumber (about 150 g), peeled and roughly chopped
1 Italian green pepper (about 100 g), stemmed, seeded and chopped; the thin-walled pale green kind, not a bell
1 small garlic clove, peeled, germ removed
50 g stale white bread, crusts removed
3 tablespoons (45 ml) sherry vinegar, divided
100 ml (7 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil, plus more to serve; a bottle worth drinking, per the buying guide
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
Cold water as needed

Method

Soak the bread. Tear it into a bowl with a few tablespoons of cold water and leave it 10 minutes, until soft through. The bread is not filler; its starch gives the soup body and helps hold the emulsion together.
Blend everything but the oil. Put the tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, garlic, soaked bread, salt and 2 tablespoons of the vinegar in the blender and run it a full 2 minutes, longer than feels necessary, until completely smooth. Hold back that last tablespoon of vinegar; it has a job later.
Drizzle in the oil. With the motor running, pour the olive oil in a thin, steady stream. Broken into droplets this way it stays suspended, and the soup visibly changes, from thin red juice to something creamy and a shade paler, the same emulsion our emulsion piece explains.
Strain. Pass the soup through a fine sieve, pressing hard on the solids, and discard the skins and seeds left behind. This is the difference between good and silken. Thin with cold water only if it is thicker than heavy cream.
Chill properly. Two hours minimum, until truly cold. Gazpacho at room temperature is a smoothie; the dish only becomes itself below cellar temperature.
Season it cold, then serve. Taste straight from the fridge and add the reserved tablespoon of vinegar and more salt until it tastes bright, not shy. Serve in bowls or, as Andalusian bars do, in glasses, with a thread of olive oil on top and a spoonful of finely diced cucumber, pepper and croutons for anyone who wants their salad crunchy.

Why it went wrong

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Thin and watery	Pale tomatoes, or water added too early	Buy the ripest, heaviest tomatoes in the room; add water only after straining, a splash at a time; use the full 50 g of bread
Foamy, with a pale froth on top	High-speed blending whips in air	Rest it in the fridge; the foam rises and skims off, and the color deepens as the air escapes
Harsh, all vinegar	All 3 tablespoons went in before chilling, or the clove was big	Split the vinegar as written; one small clove with the germ removed is enough for a liter and a half
Flat from the fridge	It was seasoned warm, and cold mutes taste	Always taste and correct after chilling; the last spoon of vinegar exists for this
Greasy, with oil pooling on top	The oil went in all at once, off the blender	Drizzle it into the running blender so it emulsifies instead of floating
Bitter	A fiercely peppery oil dominating a raw dish	Choose a softer, fruitier bottle here, or blend in half the oil and stir in the rest

Notes and variations

The bottle matters twice. The vinegar is a third of the flavor, so this is the place for a Reserva, which the Regulatory Council requires to spend at least two years in cask; Gran Reserva, aged beyond ten, is better spent by the drop over the finished bowl than in the blender. The winter version works because good tinned tomatoes are packed at the peak of their season: one 800 g (28 oz) can of whole peeled tomatoes, juice and all, stands in for the fresh kilo from October to June. Our tinned tomato guide covers which cans earn the job; the tomato label guide is the short version. Salmorejo is the Córdoba cousin: drop the cucumber and pepper, triple the bread, and top with chopped egg; the same vinegar rules apply. Salt starts at a level teaspoon for the batch and finishes at the bowl, per the salting guide. In Denver, this is the rare recipe with no correction at all: nothing boils and nothing bakes, so 5,280 feet has no opinion here, a claim almost nothing else in the altitude guide can make.

The sherry vinegar and the olive oil are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com.