Cold Dish for a Hot Night

 

HALLIE EPHRON: As I’m typing this, my weather app is predicting 90+ degrees. And I’m looking at a food-stained page I tore out of a McCALL'S (remember when there were magazines in the dentist office?) a VERY long time ago.

I usually haul this clipping from my SOUPS folder in the heat of summer, and remind myself how to make GAZPACHO. Especially good at this time of year when fresh tomatoes and green peppers and basil are readily available from our farmer’s market.

And no cooking needed. No fancy ingredients. Just a contraption to zhuzz it all up in.

The blender I once used to make gazpacho in is long deceased, but a food processor or smoothie blender work fine, though you might have to puree in batches.

Here’s my adaptation of the recipe…

PILE these ingredients into your food processor (or blender or smoothie maker) and puree (OR blend in batches)--

• 1 large tomato chopped
• 1/2 large cucumber pared and cut into chunks
• 1/2 medium onion peeled and quartered
• 1/4 medium green pepper, quartered and seeded
• 2 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup of V-8 juice

Pour the puree into a large bowl and mix in…

• 2 1/2 cups more of V-8 juice
• 1/4 cup more of light olive oil
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 tsp siracha (or Tabasco)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• Pepper to taste

REFRIGERATE until well chilled.

CHOP additional veggies and mix them into the puree:

• 1 tomato
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 cucumber)

Ladle into serving bowls and top each serving with a sprinkling of  

• chopped fresh chives and basil.

Serve with homemade croutons if you can stand to make them.

PS you can substitute tomato juice for V8.

What are your go-to cold dishes for hot nights?

Robin Ellis's Mediterrean Vegetatarian Cooking

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have long been a fan of British actor Robin Ellis, best known for portraying Winston Graham’s hero, Captain Ross Poldark in the seventies BBC adaptation of the saga (which eventually ran to 13 books!) In the recent version on Masterpiece, Robin returned—40 years after the original version-- to play Rev Dr Halse in all five series, and he was fabulous in that, too.



But these days Robin's primary passion is not acting, but cooking, and I am as big a fan of his cookbooks as I am of his performances. I have the first two, which I use all the time, and the new one is ordered!

He lives in the a village in the south of France with his American wife, and has written four cookbooks based on low-carb Mediterranean cuisine.There is a history of diabetes in his family (his mother died from it) and he himself was diagnosed with Type 2 in his fifties—so all his cookbooks feature simple, fresh recipes that are suitable for anyone wishing to eat healthily but also well. 

His latest book, Robin Ellis’s Mediterranean Vegetarian Cooking is due to be published June 25 in the UK and Aug 18 in north America.

Here's Robin as the dashing Ross Poldark:

Here's Robin as the Reverend Dr. Halse, with Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark, in the remake of the series.

And here's Robin to share a recipe with us today!

ROBIN ELLIS: Sunday evening at home in North London (leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb) in the late forties, early fifties, was my mother’s night off. The rest of the week she would cook dinner for Dad and me and we would eat it together sitting at the kitchen table—an old pine number with a scrubbed top.

But Sundays in winter we were in the sitting room in front of the coal fire (no central heating, no TV) with a tray table between us, on which would be a simple supper--macaroni cheese, toast with homemade marmalade and I guess, tea. Comfort food before the week started over on Monday morning.

Robin with his parents and younger brothers

We’d sit there listening to Mary Martin "washing that man right outta her hair" from South Pacific (thereby hangs another tale) on Dad’s state of the art gramophone (78rpms with a wooden needle.) Some Sundays she’d encourage me do my special--buttered toast with grilled cheddar cheese and slices of tomato, finished off under the grill. Never occurred to me until writing this; that must be where my penchant for slices of ripe tomatoes on pretty much anything originates!

In the difficult make do and mend years (rationing lasted until 1954) after the war, Ma made do and cooked too. There was always something going on in the tiny kitchen just off the parlour and always a bowl to lick out.

Ma was a cake maker—fruit cakes, chocolate cakes, sponges, and a cake for CHRISTMAS started, with the Christmas pudding, in September. A spoonful of brandy trickled over each week.

That marmalade too, in February, home-made with bitter oranges from Seville. The kitchen was an everyday part of my life. A place where things-that-tasted-good came from--and within feet of the cooker, in the adjacent parlour, was the pine table where the family sat together and ate those good tasting things.

Thus Ma established in me a love of simple food eaten together round a table—tray or sturdy pine. As a bachelor in my tiny mews flat in Kensington, London, I’d cook myself breakfast —eggs, bacon and of course, fried slices of tomato, before going off to rehearsals. In the evenings after work I’d spend an hour cooking a curry and 10 minutes stuffing it in my mouth, while trying to stuff the lines in my head—sitting at my own sturdy pine table.

Molly Ellis’ love of food and dedication to serving it to her hungry family not only gave me a taste for good food but also taught me, by osmosis, that food did not arrive on the table magicked out of thin air; it came via a kitchen and there was work involved. A valuable lesson as things turned out.

This classic soup first appeared in my second cookbook, Healthy Eating for Life. It is a regular at lunches in the garden in August. Delicious and simple to make, it requires no cooking at all. 

I include it again in memory of my mother, whose cooking inspired me to get in the kitchen. It’s a fair bet my mother first tasted this traditional summer soup from Andalusia in 1953, when my parents took my brother and me to the Costa Brava for a fortnight’s holiday. (Dad worked for British Railways and got a certain amount of concessionary travel in Europe.)  There were five hotels in Lloret de Mar. Now there are over five hundred. It was there that I first tasted an egg fried in olive oil—a memory that never left me.

Ma’s Gazpacho

Robin's gazpacho with his mother's recipe

SERVES 8

1kg/2lb 4oz ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped, juice reserved

1⁄2 large cucumber, peeled and roughly diced

1⁄2 large red pepper, deseeded and roughly diced

2 spring onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, pulped in a mortar with 1 tsp salt

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve

a few drops of Tabasco (optional)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

a few parsley or basil leaves (optional), chopped, to serve

8 ice cubes (optional), to serve

1. Put the tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, spring onions and garlic in a food processor. Pulse to combine until you have a not-too-smooth. Tip the purée mixture into a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

2. Stir in the red wine vinegar and olive oil and add a few drops of Tabasco if you wish – it’s a matter of taste. Chill for a couple of hours or overnight.

3. When you’re ready to serve, pour a ladleful of the gazpacho into each bowl, add a whirl of olive oil and a pinch of chopped parsley or basil, if you wish. On a hot day, I sometimes add an ice cube to each bowl, too. 

DEBS:  Robin is also featured in the Merchant Ivory adaptation of the Henry James novel, The Europeans (recently re-released). And one of best performances—though little known—was in a superb Granada adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s seminal novel, The Good Soldier (well worth seeking out.) 

Robin will be stopping in to chat with us today from the south of France, where his village is home to the annual Pink Garlic Festival! He blogs about cooking, food, and life in rural France here.

His American wife is the photographer for his two most recent cookbooks. 

 
To get his latest cookbook before the north American release, try The Book Depository (free delivery worldwide):

Summer soup: Hallie's gazpacho "to taste"

HALLIE EPHRON: This week is a free for all on Jungle Reds... we're each taking a day.

I'm just coming down from 6 weeks of book events and kicking back and relaxing at home. 

Summer is time for barbecue, pie (sour cherry, raspberry rhubarb, peach...), AND cold soups. My favorite cold summer soup is gazpacho, and I'm having some right now, even though it's 65 degrees here and rainy.

Such a simple recipe, and there aren't really set amounts so you have to taste until it's right for you.

You need a food processor to grind the vegetables with vegetable juice, then add vinegar and hot sauce and salt to taste. I topped mine with Edith Maxwell's chives (thanks, Edith!) So delicious!

Hallie's summer gazpacho

Put these ingredients in a food processor:
- 1/2 of a large cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks
- 1 medium-sized tomato or several smaller ones, cut into chunks
- 1 small or 1/2 large onion, peeled and cut into chunks (I like to use Vidalia for this)
- 1/2 green pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 cup of canned vegetable juice (like V8) or tomato juice

Blend until there are no more big chunks.

Dump into a bowl.
TASTE!
Add more juice and vinegar (I like to use cider vinegar) until it's the texture and taste you like.
Add hot sauce (I use Siracha) to taste.
Add salt to taste.

Serve...
just as it is, or mix in coarsely chopped vegetables, or top with garlic croutons or chopped chives.)

OR...make it into a seafood and avocado cocktail:
assemble a bowl of cooked  shrimp, scallops, and/or whatever cold cooked fish and shellfish you like. Add plenty of chopped avocado, douse it with gazpacho, top with fresh chopped cilantro, and serve with crusty bread. Dinner!

So what's your go-to summer soup?

Hallie's Coctel de Mariscos: A Cool Dinner for a Hot Night

Years ago, when we were at Disneyland in Los Angeles and desperate for real food, we went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant less than a mile away that my sister Amy, always a food maven, tipped us off about. The parking lot was packed and music playing. You ordered at a window and sat at long picnic tables.

I can't remember what we ate, but what I do remember is the "coctel de mariscos" (seafood cocktail) that other smarter and mostly Spanish speakers had ordered. It came in what looked like a ice cream glass and it was filled with shrimp and tomatoes and avocado and it looked spectacular.

Ever since I've been trying to approximate what I imagine it must have tasted like. My concoction is a cross between a spicy gazpacho and shrimp cocktail, and it's a perfect cold main dish for hot summer nights.

Hallie's Seafood Cocktail (the version I made last night for dinner is in the photo)

Ingredients to serve 4:
Seafood! About 1 1/2 pounds of it. Always some shrimp, and then whatever else you've got (squid, large scallops, white fish (cod, tilapia, whatever)...)
Miscellaneous aromatics for the water that you poach the seafood in (fresh herbs like parsley, celery tops, a piece of onion, a slice of lemon or lime, scallions, peppercorns, salt)
Tomato (or V8) juice (about 2 cups)
Hot sauce (or a finely chopped jalapeno) to taste
1 chopped up sweet green pepper
1 chopped up ripe avocado
1/2 of a sweet onion, chopped
A good handful of chopped cilantro
A pound of chopped fresh tomatoes
Juice of 2 limes (at least)
Salt and pepper to taste
(Optional: white vinegar to taste)

1. Cook the seafood
Boil about 4" of water in a saucepan with the aromatics for about 5 minutes.
Throw in the raw seafood, cut into chunks, and cook until just done, probably about 4-5 minutes.
Drain and separate out the aromatics (and discard).
Squeeze the juice of 2 limes over the drained seafood and and let it cool.

2. Put the green pepper, avocado, onion, cilantro, and tomatoes in a nonreactive serving bowl. Add the seafood. Add the tomato juice and hot sauce (or jalapeno) to taste and salt and pepper. Mix. Taste. Season. (If it's not sharp and piquante enough for you add more hot sauce and some white vinegar.)

3. Chill and serve.

NOTE: If you're going to be awhile before serving, then don't add the chopped up avocados until just before you're ready to serve.

If anyone out there has had an authentic coctel de mariscos, let me know how far off this gringa has wandered.