I always assumed that gazpacho meant cold tomato soup. Seems I have always been wrong. When I was told by a friend she would be serving white gazpacho I could not work out how tomatoes could ever produce a white soup. They didn’t need to as it seems gazpacho really means any cold vegetable soup; it just usually means tomato based.

This white cold soup has become a favourite very quickly; in addition to having it at my friend’s home, I have served it twice in the last month, both time to rave reviews.

It is also really easy.

You need: stock (2 cups), stale (or not) bread (2 cups), blanched almonds (1 cup), seedless white grapes (2 cups), cucumbers (2), garlic (as much as makes you happy – I use about 4 cloves), olive oil (1/4 cup), salt, sheery or cider vinegar (2 – 3 Tablespoons), a food processor.

You do:

Heat the stock and then break the crustless bread into it. The recipe says use good bread so I have used French loaf. A long french loaf is about the right amount of insides. (And the crusty outsides are not very hard to dispose of with butter and cheese.)

While the stock and bread are getting soggy together, whizz the almonds, garlic and salt in a food processor.

Add the cooled stock bread mush and all (if there is any) unabsorbed stock. Whizz that up with the skinned, seeded, chopped cucumber and halved grapes. Stop when it is all mixed and a rough-looking puree. My food processor can do half of this at a time only. Check the capacity of yours and if that is true for you too, I advise you actually make two distinct batches rather than try to divide the stock and bread, or the garlic, almonds and salt after combining them.

Add about a tablespoon of vinegar to the mix and taste. I have not needed to add more than 2 Tablespoons but apparently some grapes need more. Then drizzle in the oil while the food processor is on.

The most recent time I made this I used half chilli and garlic oil, and half plain oil. The little bit of a bite it added was a nice addition, but it is not necessary if you are not a chilli fan.

Taste and add salt if necessary (I have never found it necessary) and chill.

Serve in teacups (if you wish) garnished with chives, almonds or grapes

Absolutely delicious. A perfect starter to a meal and in summer could be a whole meal very easily. But hard to photograph especially after drinking wine while cooking :-). You can google images it if you want to see better pics

The soup is textured and filling.

It got high scores at both outing at my house, and at my friend’s house.