Grape Almond Gazpacho Soup

The city is getting hotter and sweltering under heatwave for the past couple of weeks. Mid-days are bad with temperatures soaring as high as 34 deg C. I have considerably reduced on spice in food to relive the heat. Ceiling fan switches have been turned on after a long time and as we are reeling under the heat, we look forward to eating simple meals with low spices and masala. Kitchen affairs are more of salads, simple curries, vegetable stir-fries, soups, yogurt based meals and many of their likes. Though, I seldom make soups, but whenever I do, it's eaten steaming hot, spooned right off from the stove to the mouth! So I have never been able to capture them on my camera.

After a few doses of cookies and desserts, I am introducing soups on my blog for the first time. Bingo! Good way to go. This soup was my choice for the day from an array of soups, salads and desserts, picked from a cookery book by Radha Rao's 'Soups, Salads and Desserts', that don my bookshelf from past few weeks. A Grape Gazpacho. For the uninitiated, Gazpacho are cold soups commonly made with ingredients of bread, olive oil, water and garlic. Tomato Gazpacho are the most commonly known ones, but this one is a Grape Almond Gazpacho. I was curious! Not quite sure how this combination would work out. With grapes, almonds, garlic, olive oil, I was skeptical if it would really come well together!

Since grapes are in season, I thought it was a great idea to give it a try. Sit back and relish a cold soup, the best way to soothe the high temperatures and beat the heat.

Grape Almond Gazpacho

INGREDIENTS

1 cup green seedless grapes
1 cup diced bread pieces
4 large garlic cloves
1/2 cup blanched whole almonds
1 cup water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp vinegar/lime juice
Salt & pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Soak whole almonds in warm water for 15 minutes.

Wash and clean the green seedless grapes. Puree them in a blender till they are fine. Collect the pulp and the juice. Place the torn bread pieces in a bowl and pour the grape pulp and juice over it so that it absorbs it.

Combine blanched softened almonds (along with water) and garlic in a food processor. Pulse until nuts are finely ground. Add the bread along with grape juice and blitz again until bread is completely incorporated. Add the vinegar or lemon juice and olive oil and pulse until all is evenly incorporated. Add salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning as preferred.

Transfer the soup to a container and chill for an hour or more. Gazpacho is best served when cold. Pour into soup bowls and garnish with parsley/coriander and pepper. Serve cold.

Even as I was pouring the soups to their respective soup bowls, I sipped and enjoyed quite a lot of it directly from the jug! It was good enough not to last long! The soup has higher tones of garlic which I thoroughly loved. But, reduce a few garlic cloves if that's not your liking. I served these with bread croutons to complete the soup.

It's a simple aromatic soup made of juicy sweet grapes and nutty almonds, spiced with hints of garlic and pepper. Cool and soothing for a nice sunny day.

I am sending this over to Nithubala's event "Think Beyond the Usual - Fruits".