Gazpacho with shrimp - a cold spanish soup for hot days

Gazpacho, cold Spanish veggie soup in a bowl with a shrip and a half a bun of bread

It's still summer but the weather is going mad these days. If it's not raining (and it always tends to start raining heavily so of course all of my flights recently have been delaying on a regular basis), then it's damp and hot and the bill for the electricity is going through the roof, damn those air conditioners. Well, as already wrote in my blog post about the stuffed bell pepper, one is looking for some cooling and light summer dishes these days. For me there is nothing more refreshing the a cold bowl of Gazpacho. This is a savory cold vegetable soup originated in Spain (most likely in Andalusia). As we still having some King Prawns lying around, I add those to the dish as that is a perfect compliment to go along with the soup. So here is my favorite Gazpacho recipe:

Ingredients:

• 300 gram old bread
• 600 gram tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 onions
• 2 red and green peppers
• 1 cucumber
• 7 tablespoon of oil
• 2 tablespoon of vinegar
• 1.5 tablespoon of water
• 1 tea spoon cumin
• Salt and pepper to taste
• A few drops of Tabasco (up to your taste how many drops those shall be)
• 2 king prawns or shrimps

Veggie group picture with tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, garlic. cucumber, bread and shrimps

Soak the old bread in some water until it is soft and soaked, take it out and squeeze out all o of the water from the bread.
Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, then immerse them in cold water. The skin of the tomatoes will pop open and you can now peel the skin of very easily.
Now you take all the vegetables from the list above and dice them. Take 1/3 of the diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and bell peppers aside. Throw the rest in your blender. (not the shrimps of course) and blend it all to a silky smooth soup.
Now you can take out your ice cube form. Pour some soup in it and pop it in the freezer to make some Gazpacho ice cubes. In the meantime pop the rest of the soup and the diced veggies in the fridge. Everything should be well chilled through at consumption.
Now what's left is to quickly prepare the shrimps. Boil some water till its really hot and boiling. Take it of the water and put the raw shrimp in the water. Let it in there for about 5 minutes, you will see when they change their color to bright orange, then they are just about right.

For the serving:
put two Gazpacho ice cubes in a soup bowl. Pour the soup over it. Take some of the diced veggies and sprinkle it over the soup. and then garnish it off with one shrimp.