Gazpacho

With this recipe I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite food seasonings: ghost pepper salt. Made from the hottest pepper in the world, the Naga Jolokia pepper, this salt really smacks you in the face. I use it in addition to the habanero to make my Gazpacho really spicy. Feel free to use either one, or neither if you are not a fan of spicy foods.

This salt can be found at several online venders including Amazon.com; I get mine from spiceandtea.com.

Makes: 6 cups

Preparation time: 5m
Cooking time: 5m
Total time: 5m

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups puréed tomatoes (about 5 tennis ball sized tomatoes)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 cucumber (10" long, peeled)
  • 2 celery stalks
  • 2 large carrots
  • 1 teaspoon ghost pepper salt (optional)
  • salt and pepper (to taste)
  • 1 garlic clove (peeled)
  • 1 habanero (optional, remove stem and seeds)
  • 1 red bell pepper (remove stem and seeds)
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (Paleo: omit this ingredient)

Equipment: Vitamix or regular blender

Instructions:

  1. First you need to make the base. To do this quarter the tomatoes and put them into the blender with the lemon juice, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, habanero and onion poweder. Blend until smooth. You want about 2 cups of this puree, if it is less than 2 cups then add a few more tomatoes and puree again.
  2. Roughly chop the cucumber, bell pepper, celery and carrots into 2” chunks and add them to the blender along with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. If using a Vitamix blend on setting 5 for 30 seconds. If using a regular blender, blend on a medium setting until you reach the desired consistency. Gazpacho should be a little chunky, but each person likes it a little different. So feel free to make it more or less chunky.
  3. Eat strait away or chill and devour it later.

Note: You will notice that I do not add fresh onion to this gazpacho, while traditionally it is a primary ingredient. I find that every time I add onion it overpowers the other vegetables and that is all I can taste. If you really want to have onion in yours I would suggest adding a very small amount to start with or try a less potent onion like green onions or chives rather than yellow onions.