Slurp chilled

In my early twenties I attended a dinner party with some pretensions to grandeur, which kicked off with bowls of cold Happy Shopper tomato soup garnished with cucumber slices, cayenne pepper and the pièce de résistance, a large green pepper of the sort all too familiar from the kebab van. "It's gazpacho," the host, freshly returned from a year in Spain, assured us proudly. "Great," the boy to my left replied. "Where's the microwave?"

We have long been suspicious of chilled soups — they seem unnatural somehow, in a climate more suited to tartan vacuum flasks and steaming broths. But the soup works its magic.

Refreshing recipe

The gazpacho is refreshing and full of ripe, summery flavours. Lindsey Bareham's description of it as "a salad soup" in A Celebration of Soup is absolutely spot on. It is, essentially, an Andalusian peasant dish designed to stretch cheap ingredients to their absolute limit. Early recipes call only for a mixture of bread, olive oil, garlic and water — tomatoes and peppers, imports from the New World, came much later to the party. As Lindsey observes, like any good salad, it can be made with whatever happens to be ripe at the time.

The recipe for a classic gazpacho is fairly flexible, the main bone of contention being the inclusion of bread. Although a standard ingredient since the soup's medieval inception, Elizabeth David, in Mediterranean Food, gives a recipe without bread although she recommends including many less-common ingredients such as chopped olives and marjoram.

I test the old dragon by making a basic gazpacho, and replicating it without the bread. I crumble a slice of slightly stale, crusty white into a few ripe tomatoes, a third of a cucumber, a ripe red pepper and a garlic clove, all chopped. Then I blend it until smooth before adding three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of vinegar. Two tablespoons of cold water takes it to a soupy consistency, which can be seasoned and chilled while I make the same soup without the bread. This one needs no added water. Having tested them both, I think the bread not only adds body but a certain creaminess — without it, the soup feels more like a thin salsa.

Getting real

In her book The Real Taste of Spain, Jenny Chandler directs the cook to soak the bread in water before using it, an idea backed by no lesser person than the wife of the former Spanish ambassador to London, Elena Meneses de Orozco, who suggests this should be for at least an hour.

As one squeezes the water from the bread before mixing, the reasons for this are somewhat opaque: It helps it to blend with the vegetables. I make another gazpacho using soaked bread and try it against the first one I made, which used dry breadcrumbs. It needs less water to bring it to a soupy consistency, and seems to hold together better, so I decide soaking is a good thing.

Tweak to taste

Now for the tweaks — those little extras that can take a dish from good to blogworthy. I'm not talking about bits of lobster or mango pickle or any of the other crimes that have been perpetrated on this poor soup in the name of "modern twists" — just additions that build upon the basic flavours.

The real secret to gazpacho, if we assume your ingredients are ripe and your fridge cold, is good olive oil, and lots of it. Meanness has no place here, unless you're a frugal peasant — pour it in great glugs and add vinegar to taste. Don't be tempted to chill the soup with ice cubes; you'll just dilute the flavours — make it well ahead instead, so it has time to chill before serving. Choose your garnishes with care — mint is deliciously refreshing, olives add a rich, savoury element to the clean flavours of the vegetables — and please, insist that everyone tries it before they make their excuses about cold soup.

Felicity's perfect gazpacho

• 100g crusty white bread, slightly stale (soaked in cold water for 20 minutes)
• 1kg very ripe tomatoes, diced
• 1 ripe red pepper and 1 green pepper, deseeded and diced
• 1 medium cucumber, peeled and diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 150ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tbs vinegar
• Salt, to taste
• Garnish of your choice

Mix the diced tomatoes, peppers and cucumber with the crushed garlic and olive oil in a food processor or blender.

Squeeze out the bread, tear it roughly into chunks and add to the mixture. Blend until smooth. Add salt and vinegar to taste and stir well. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Cover and refrigerate until chilled.

Serve with garnishes of your choice: I liked diced black olives, hard-boiled egg and small pieces of cucumber and pepper; mint or parsley also works well; and many people add spring onion or cubes of meat.

Servings: 4