Tuesday 30 June 2015

Chilled Almond & Garlic Soup - Andalucian - delicious - Ajo Blanco


blanched almonds


recipe 1.
Ingredients:
250g (9 ozs.) whole blanched almonds
500 ml. (18fl.ozs) iced water, chicken or vegetable stock
80g. (3ozs.) white bread - crustless and cubed
2 cloves of garlic - roughly chopped
50ml. (2 fl.ozs) olive oil
50ml. (2fl.ozs) sherry vinegar
salt and ground black pepper
150g (5ozs.) golden raisins and/or chopped chives/slivered almonds/grape slices

1. Place almonds into your food processor and blend until very fine.
2. Add 50ml. of the water and blend to a paste.
3. Add the bread and garlic and blend again.
4. With the motor running, gradually add the remaining water, then gradually add the olive oil.
5. Add the sherry vinegar and season to taste.
6. Serve sprinkling a few raisins over each bowl. drizzle of olive oil and garnishes.

Recipe (slightly tweaked) c/o Simon Rimmer

recipe 2.
Ingredients:
250g blanched whole almonds
60g crustless, day-old white bread roughly torn up - soaked in the water for about 15 mins.
Picota (fresh) Cherries
750ml. water
1 large clove of chopped/crushed garlic
12 tblspns. extra virgin olive oil
3 tblspns. sherry vinegar (or to taste)
sea salt (fine)

green grapes - chopped
peeled apple - chopped (small pieces)
peeled cucumber - chopped - if wanted
20 Picota cherries - pitted and chilled
chopped fresh mint

1. Place the softened bread and water into your liquidiser, with the almonds, garlic and olive oil - blitz until smooth and creamy.
2. Season to taste with sherry vinegar and salt.
3. transfer to a lidded container and refrigerate until the soup is very well chilled at least 2 - 3 hours.
4. Ladle into pretty soup bowls and either serve the accompaniments separately in small bowls, or put a little of each on top of the soup, with a little chopped mint.

This is delicious and very refreshing on a hot summer's day.

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