Hot weather is no reason to stop selling soup.
Although the vast majority of soup served in restaurants is hot — only 1 percent of American menus with soup on them describe them as “chilled,” according to menu research firm Food Genius — these cold liquid appetizers make for great menu additions, contributing to incremental sales and providing lighter, more healthful and often vegetarian options for guests.
That’s particularly true for gazpacho, a chilled Spanish soup usually made with tomatoes and often thickened with puréed bread, that reflects the flavors of summer and can be adapted easily to different restaurants’ styles.
Gazpacho sales at restaurants start rising in May, according GrubHub. Data from the online food ordering service show that gazpacho orders in May are 26 percent higher than the annual norm. That rises to 115 percent in June and 224 percent in July, before gradually decreasing to 178 percent in August and 128 percent in September.
The following versions of the soup show how chefs are adding their own creative touches to this versatile soup category, from creative garnishes to seasonal adaptations, and even to smoking some of the elements.
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Avocado ice cream tops traditional take
Jay Murray, executive chef of Grill 23 & Bar in Boston, makes a fairly traditional gazpacho, but adds his own flourish by garnishing the soup with a scoop of avocado ice cream and corn nuts. He also removes the bread that’s usually used as a thickener and instead adds a little xanthan gum.
Murray starts with plum tomatoes, roasted and peeled red peppers, peeled seedless cucumber and red onion, which he dices and puts in a bowl with minced cilantro and chervil, kosher salt and some granulated honey. He lets the mixture sit for an hour and then purées it in a blender.
Separately, he sweats red onion with diced chorizo in olive oil, until the onions are translucent. Then he adds tomato juice, sherry and sherry vinegar, brings it to a simmer and dissolves a little xanthan gum in it.
When the onion-chorizo and tomato mixtures are at room temperature, he purées them together in batches, slowly drizzling in olive oil to emulsify it. He then strains it through a chinois and chills it.
For the ice cream, he purées avocado with lemon and lime juice, adding some milk as needed to make it smooth. He adds heavy cream, sugar and a little kosher salt, and chills it overnight before spinning it in his ice cream maker.
To serve, he pours four ounces of gazpacho in a bowl, adds a two-ounce scoop of avocado ice cream, and a few corn nuts and a large sprig of chervil. The dish is priced at $13.
Spanish soup with a Greek twist
Cava Grill, a 12-unit, fast-casual Mediterranean chain in the Washington, D.C., area, offered gazpacho last summer, highlighting its seasonality and taking credit for local sourcing by promoting that the tomatoes are from Hummingbird Farms in Ridgely, Md. Chef Dimitri Moshovitis gave this Spanish soup Greek flair by garnishing it with crumbled feta.
Moshovitis combined peeled, seeded tomatoes with charred red onion, jalapeño pepper and raw chopped European cucumber. He added lime juice, salt, pepper and olive oil that he infused with garlic, basil and red pepper flakes. He puréed that until it was smooth and served it with chilled, crumbled feta for $3.25.
Looking back for a modern touch
Although gazpacho is best known as a chilled tomato soup, the Spanish have been making it since long before tomatoes were first introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Older gazpacho recipes, possibly brought by the Moors from North Africa, are white, and made with almonds, olive oil, bread and garlic.
George Mendes, executive chef of Aldea, a fine-dining restaurant in New York City, makes such a version, adding a touch of luxury with poached lobster and a sense of seasonality by garnishing it with heirloom tomatoes.
“I love combining old peasant dishes like that with a touch of luxury,” Mendes said. “The lobster gives it a nice, uplifting spirit.”
Mendes starts with water, blanched almonds, day-old bread soaked in water, garlic and sherry vinegar. He combines them all in a blender and then emulsifies it with olive oil, “so you get a really creamy texture.” He strains it through a chinois and chills it. Next, he puts chunks of cold lobster meat in a soup bowl. He also takes grape tomatoes and small heirloom tomatoes, slices them in half and places them in the bowl. The chilled soup is poured tableside and priced at $18.
Barbecue chef smokes tomatoes
Matt Fisher, pit master of Fletcher’s Brooklyn Barbecue in Brooklyn, N.Y., makes gazpacho during tomato season as an option for the many vegetarians in the area.
He also wanted it to appeal to his regular carnivore customers, so he gives the tomatoes a barbecued quality by splitting them and putting them in the same smoker he uses for his meats. Then he seeds and cores them and purées them in a food mill with raw cucumber, bell pepper, onion, sherry vinegar, salt, pepper and a little chile, but no bread. Then he strains the mixture in a chinois and chills it for several hours.
For a garnish, he makes a salad of multicolored heirloom tomatoes that he peels, seeds and dices. He sprinkles them with salt and lets them sit for several hours.
He puts the tomato salad in the chilled soup, along with water he reserves from bell peppers and poblano peppers that he roasts in the embers of his barbecue fire. (He uses the roasted peppers for a separate dish). He finishes the dish with basil oil made from basil grown on a neighbor’s rooftop garden, and pea shoots. The soup is priced at $5.
Using sweeter fruits in season
Tomato gazpacho is the best-known variety of the chilled soup, and 31 percent of cold soups in American restaurants have tomato in them, according to Food Genius, but sweeter fruits are used in the soup, too.
Watermelon is often used as a sweet counterbalance to tomato, or even as a replacement for it.
That’s what chef Franklin Becker did last July at his fast-casual, gluten-free restaurant The Little Beet, in New York City. Like Murray of Grill 23, he thickened it with xanthan gum to keep it gluten free, but once honeydew came into season in August, he decided to make a green gazpacho.
Both soups had cucumber, green pepper, scallions, jalapeño peppers, garlic, olive oil, mint, cilantro, lime juice and salt. But for the green soup, along with honeydew, he also added avocado, which he used instead of xanthan gum to thicken the soup, “so the soup itself is really smooth and velvety,” he said.
He garnishes it with a salsa of honeydew, cucumber, cilantro, mint, lime juice, lime zest, lemon-infused olive oil, salt, pepper and jalapeño. The soup is priced at $5.50.
Strawberries add enough sweetness
Strawberry was chef Andrew Zimmerman’s fruit of choice for a chilled soup he offered early last summer at Sepia in Chicago.
“You’d think it would be too sweet and dessert-y, but we put enough vegetable components in it that you end up using some of the strawberry’s natural sweetness, but also the acidity, and then a lot of that nice, fresh vegetable flavor,” Zimmerman said.
He started with chopped strawberries, fennel bulb, cucumber, a little red onion, garlic, peeled and seeded tomatoes, and green bell pepper. He salted that mixture and let it sit for about 30 to 45 minutes to let the salt pull some of the liquid out, making it easier to purée.
Meanwhile he soaked the inside — not the crust — of day-old ciabatta in a little water. Then he squeezed out the water, added it to the vegetables and puréed the entire mixture with olive oil, a little sherry vinegar and some water if necessary.
“The bread and the olive oil help give the soup body and richness, and the sherry vinegar helps amp up the acidity,” Zimmerman said.
He made sure the soup was heavily seasoned, since it was served cold, which mutes flavor.
He puréed the soup until it was very smooth, “including occasional trips through a fine strainer,” he said. Then he put it in a metal container and packed it in ice.
For garnish, he arranged sliced strawberries in the soup bowl, along with small balls of cucumbers and slivers of fennel stalks. He also put down some whipped mascarpone cheese and an almond oil jam. The latter is made by whipping heated liquid glucose into egg yolks and then pouring in French almond oil, “like making buttercream,” creating a jam-like texture.
To serve, he put some cracked black pepper in the bowl and poured the soup tableside.
Once peaches came into season, he swapped them for the strawberries and kept the recipe basically the same, except for the garnish, which was thinly sliced peaches instead of strawberries, black cardamom gelée instead of almond jam, and cracked black cardamom instead of pepper.
The chilled soup was priced at $12.
Cooked version of a raw soup
Gazpacho is usually made with raw ingredients, but Christopher Hill, chef–partner of 3 Way Cafe in Norfolk, Va., cooks the cantaloupe in his chilled melon bisque.
To start, he sweats the cantaloupe with diced onion, garlic and thyme, adds vegetable stock and cooks the mixture for 25 to 30 minutes.
“I liked the idea of incorporating some other sweetness from the garlic and onions that play with the flavors of the cantaloupe,” Hill said.
He then strains out the thyme, purées everything else, strains it, chills it and adds a little cream. At service, he garnishes it with Hawaiian black salt.
“We grew up eating cantaloupe with a pinch of salt,” and the black color makes for a nice contrast, he said.
The soup is priced at $7.
