Ajo Blanco: the White Gazpacho of Málaga

Whenever I think of cold soups, I think of gazpacho, the “liquid salad” of Spain. I have been making it and its cousin, white gazpacho forever and love them.

But I write about food and history so I had to ask, what was the history of gazpacho? I know it is an ancient soup, but I discovered in this case, counter-intuitively, the much rarer white gazpacho came before the red. No wonder, when you think about it. Tomatoes and peppers are a gift of the new world. They weren’t really available to the general population till long after Columbus visited the new world. Before red, there was Ajo Blanco which first appeared in the Middle Ages when Spain was a part of the Islamic world.

Eugenia de Montijo

Food historian, Clifford Wright said in his great book, The Best Soups in the World:

“The emergence of the popularity of gazpacho out of Andalusia into the rest of Spain is said by Alicia Rios and Lourdes March, authors of Spanish cookbooks, to be the result of Eugenia de Montijo, the wife of the French Emperor Napoleon III in the nineteenth century. Gazpacho was unknown, or little known, in the north of Spain before about 1930. And it is not always liquid, nor does it always contain tomatoes. According to Juan de la Mata in his Arte de reposteriapublished in 1747, the most common gazpacho was known as capon de galeraconsisting of a pound of bread crust soaked in water and put in a sauce of anchovy bones, garlic, and vinegar, sugar, salt and olive oil and letting it soften. Then one adds "some of the ingredients and vegetables of the Royal Salad [a salad composed of various fruits and vegetables].”

Wright said that originally ajo blanco “contained garlic, almonds, bread, olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Ajo blanco is today associated with Málaga and made with fresh grapes.”

That’s the one I remember and the one I have made although not for a terribly long time, shame on me.

The recipes for it are all very similar –– then I found one from a restaurant in NYC called Dovetail that was particularly compelling. In addition to the regular ingredients, it had sautéed leeks and cucumbers. It also had a secret green oil in the gorgeous photograph of the soup (with no mention of what made it green in the recipe).

For some reason, I have been reading about borage lately. I found it used in a pasta filling last week and then it was mentioned as a forgotten ingredient in an article on Extremaduran Cuisine that I read researching gazpacho history. If you've never tried it, borage flowers and leaves have a delicate cucumber flavor and are wonderful.

It seemed the borage gods were calling my name so I decided to make my green oil with borage (but dill or chervil would work as well –– something like basil or parsley would be too strong for the dish).

When I did a little research on the Dovetail Restaurant, I discovered that they had done a few versions of the soup. One had asparagus and lavender in the mix. This sounded delicious. I thought I would add a hint of lavender to the sautéed nuts for a seductive addition to my beautiful soup. What I discovered is that toasted lavender almonds is one of the best things on the planet. I am going to make many more and serve them as an elegant snack!

The recipe did not contain garlic, and that I thought was necessary to making a classic white gazpacho so I put that in. The result is perfection. If you can stop yourself from devouring your garnishes (grapes and those almonds are great together too...), you will be well rewarded with a beautiful light summer soup that is pretty simple to make and gorgeous with edible summer flowers.

White Gazpacho (inspired by Dovetail Restaurant)

Yield: 6 portions

¼ cup whites of leeks, sliced thin and washed 

1-2 cloves garlic, mashed (optional)

3 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed  then crumbled and soaked in water

10 green grapes, washed 

¼ cup blanched almond slivers 

1 ½ tablespoons sherry vinegar 

2 cups chopped cucumbers  (if you want the soup to be creamy colored get rid of the peel - I kept it)

½ tablespoon cream or sour cream  (optional)

¼ cup good quality olive oil 

1 ½ cups cold water 

salt to taste –– 2 or so tsp.

Garnish:

a few green grapes sliced

Green oil

Lavender almonds

Borage flowers and/or nasturtiums (optional)

Herbs (borage flowers, chervil or dill)

Green Oil

¼ c oil (a bland oil is best, canola or safflower or grapseed)

2-5 borage leaves, depending on size (or ¼ c loosely packed chervil or dill)

pinch of salt

Lavender Almonds

¼ c sliced almonds

1 T oil

tiny drop of Aftelier’s Lavender chef Essence or a good pinch of ground lavender

1 T of salt

Cook leeks and garlic in a medium-size sauté pan over low heat until translucent and tender (you don't want them to brown), then chill in refrigerator. 

Combine leeks, almonds and bread (squeeze the water out) and put in a blender. Start the motor and blend. Add the oil, vinegar, grapes, cream and cucumbers, blending between each addition and adding water as needed and purée until smooth (if you dump everything in at once the nuts will not grind properly). Add the water as needed till the soup is the thickness you would like.

Season with salt, adjusting amount as needed.

Pass through a fine-mesh sieve and scrape the sieve to extract as much as you can of the soup solids.

For herb oil, Process herbs and salt in oil and let sit for an hour then strain, pressing on the solids

For lavender almonds, Sauté the almonds gently in the oil and add the lavender essence or ground lavender to the salt and toss with the almonds. OR combine the oil with the lavender essence or ground lavender. Toast the almonds using low flame till slightly browned, then toss in the oil with a pinch of salt. You will have some salt/oil left over... make more almonds!!

Ladle the soup into bowls or into 1 serving bowl and garnish with oil, grapes, almonds and herbs and serve cold.