This soup was one of my entries to the easy summer eats. I love soups. And even more so I love tomatoes. When I was a kid I was really into tomato soup. My grandma made the most amazing one. Then one day she came up with this crazy idea that she would make it into a “lecso” soup. Lecso is a Hungarian vegetable stew made with onions, tomatoes and white Hungarian pepper. My answer was a firm NOOOOO. Peppers in my tomato soup? No way. But my grandma thought who cares what this little pumpkin wants. And she made her version anyway. But she didn’t tell me it had peppers in it. Until I finished with my soup, eating it all.

So don’t be afraid. The soup will only taste better with peppers in there. 🙂

This is a cold, no cooking, gazpacho soup. For that exact reason your ingredients have to be top notch. You can not get away with mediocre, bland produce here…. All the flavor will come from your vegetables, mainly the tomatoes.

Just add all the ingredients in the blender, blend it to a consistency you want. Towards the end add your seasoning and it is done. Tomatoes need lots of salt so don’t be shy. Buy some good quality salt which is good for you. I use pink himalayan. Remember without salt your food will have no taste. You don’t want to taste salt but flavors. Salt helps flavors to shine. It is imperative with tomatoes! I added pimento paprika, which is a smoked Spanish paprika. This will give the soup the smoky flavor I really enjoyed. If you use any other kinds, your soup will simply taste different. Go and get that smoked paprika! From the photo below I used those red tomatoes, the red pepper, the jalapeño and half of that big onion in the middle. If you can’t eat spicy, hot, just leave the jalapeño out.

To make it a full meal I served it “Barcelona style”. Jamon iberico, spanish olives, marcona almonds and boiled egg as condiments. To make the perfect boiled egg you need to put your room temperature eggs in boiling water and cook uncovered for exactly 12 minutes.

Also toasted some bread, rubbed them with some garlic and drizzled with olive oil.  ENJOY!

Ingredients for 4 persons

• 5 big juicy tomatoes
• 1 big red california pepper
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 T dark cane sugar
• 2-3 T sherry vinegar
• 1/3 cup of olive oils
• salt, ground pepper, pimento paprika
• grated manchego cheese and chopped parsley for serving

And for the condiments

• jamon iberico
• spanish olives
• chopped boiled eggs
• marcona almonds
• bread
• 1 garlic clove to rub the bread once it is toasted
• olive oil