GAZPACHUELO IS NOT GAZPACHO—OR, IS IT?

 

We think we know what gazpacho is—the cold soup from Spain made with tomatoes blended with garlic and olive oil. Gazpachuelo is a cooked soup from Málaga that sometimes has fish or shellfish in it. It may be closer to the origin of gazpacho than the cold soup.

The origin of the word “gazpacho” is tracked to way before the arrival of tomatoes from the New World to the European continent. One study (María Teresa Santamaría, “Etimología de gazpacho,” Universidad Castilla-La Mancha, 2023.) links the word phonetically to the Latin “caccabaceus,” a cauldron or cooking pot, and subsequently to bread cooked in the pot. The word apparently became “gazpacho” following the Reconquest of the Arabic-speaking population of Mozárabe Christians in the transition to the Romance language that would become Castellano Spanish.

The word “gazpacho” was originally used for a cooked dish, a shepherd’s stew to which is added a flatbread called torta. The dish, often with partridge or rabbit, continues to be popular in La Mancha and is known by the plural, gazpachos. 

Gazpachuelo, although it is a diminuitive of gazpacho, is a cooked dish. Consisting of bread, rice, or potatoes with an egg and olive oil emulsion, it is sometimes called sopa de huevo in other parts of Spain. It is not unlike the Greek avgolemono. In inland pueblos of Málaga gazpachuelo might include salt cod, while in the fishermen’s barrios of Málaga it has bits of fish and shellfish. 

I’ve written about gazpachuelo before (see below for links to recipes). Today I’m making a summertime variation, turning it into a shrimp-potato salad served with a chilled lemony broth.

A lemony potato salad with shrimp mixes with a light broth made with mayonnaise.

Add garnishes to taste--crispy croutons, olives, green peas. 

Chilled Gazpachuelo Soup with Shrimp-Potato Salad

Gazpachuelo en Frio con Ensaladilla de Gambas

I have divided the recipe into its components, shrimp broth, potato salad, mayonnaise, and soup, as it easily can be prepared in stages.   Be sure to refrigerate the components if they are prepared in advance. A light shrimp broth is the liquid base for the soup. If shrimp heads are not available, use store-bought fish stock, light chicken broth, or plain water.

Shrimp heads for broth.

For the shrimp broth:

8 ounces small, heads-on shrimp

Salt

2 cups + 4 cups water

Ice water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1  clove garlic, lightly crushed

1 bay leaf

Parsley sprig

Lemon wedge

2-3 small potatoes (8 ounces), scrubbed

Peel the shrimp, reserving both the heads and bodies in separate bowls. (If desired, remove dark veins from the shrimp.) Bring 2 cups of water to a boil with ½ teaspoon salt. Have ready a small bowl of ice water with ½ teaspoon salt. Add the peeled shrimp to the boiling water. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Set a colander over a heat-proof bowl. Drain the shrimp, saving the liquid. Place the shrimp in the ice water to cool. Drain and reserve the shrimp, covered and refrigerated, until ready to serve the soup.

Heat the oil in a soup pot on medium-high. Add the shrimp heads and crushed garlic. Fry them 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are browned. Add the reserved liquid from cooking the shrimp, 4 cups water, bay leaf, parsley, lemon, and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and add the potatoes to cook in the pot. Cook until potatoes are tender when piereced with a knife, 15 minutes. Remove the potatoes. Set a strainer over a heat-proof bowl and strain the shrimp broth. Discard the solids. Let the broth cool.

For the mayonnaise with lemon juice:

Use your best-flavored extra-virgin olive oil to make the mayonnaise. 

1 large egg

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon salt

Place the egg in a tall container with ¼ cup of the oil. Using an immersion blender, blend at high speed without raising the blender until the egg and oil are mixed and beginning to thicken. With the blender running, slowly add the remaining ¼ cup oil. Raise and lower the blender until the mixture is emulsified. Add the lemon juice and salt.

For the potato-shrimp salad:

Cooked potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 piquillo pepper (from a can) or 1 tablespoon chopped roasted red pepper

1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley

Cooked shrimp

Peel the potatoes and cut them into ½-inch dice. Place in a small bowl and add the oil, salt, and lemon juice. Chop the piquillo pepper and add to the potatoes with the parsley. If not serving immediately, store, covered, in the refrigerator. Immediately before serving, add the shrimp to the potatoes, saving a few to garnish the tops of the soup. 

Soup after blending.

To serve the soup:

Mayonnaise with lemon juice

5 cups shrimp broth

Potato-shrimp salad

Shrimp to garnish

Chopped chives or parsley to garnish

Cooked peas (optional)

Olives (optional)

Rucula leaves (optional)

Croutons of fried bread or breadsticks (optional)

Place the mayonnaise in blender cup. Beat in 1 cup of the shrimp broth. Place the remaining shrimp broth in a deep bowl or pot (so it doesn’t splatter when blended). Gradually beat in the mayonnaise-stock from the blender cup. Place the soup in a covered bowl or flask and chill until serving time.

Mound or mold the salad.

Divide the potato-shrimp salad between 4 shallow bowls, mounding it in the center of each bowl. Or place it in a small mold as pictured.

Carefully pour the chilled soup into the bowls around the salad. Garnish with a few shrimp and peas, if desired, on top. Sprinkle with chives. Serve garnishes of olives, rucula, croutons alongside the soup. 

Serve a selection of garnishes on the side. 

More interpretations of gazpachuelo:

Meatballs in Gazpachuelo Soup (meatballs are turkey; purple potatoes)

Mediterranean Seafood Chowder (Gazpachuelo) A Málaga classic. Why not call it chowder?

Viña AB Soup (Gazpachuelo with Sherry) 

And, a recipe for ensaladilla--without the soup:

Ensaladilla Rusa 

A documentary about gazpachuelo (in Spanish) made by Jorge Rivera Gazpachuelo (Documental, Subs ES/EN) | Videos & Movies on Vimeo   

My latest cookbook, FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS, The Culinary Legacy of Spain, has a recipe for classic Málaga gazpachuelo with seafood, made with rice instead of potatoes. As well as several versions of gazpacho (with no tomatoes), and for the La Mancha gazpachos (plural), a stew with chicken! 

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Author and Spanish cooking expert Janet Mendel tells the story of the Moorish influence on Spanish cooking through 120 recipes and photographs for modern-day dishes, from salads and vegetables to fish, poultry and meat to sweets and pastries, that trace their heritage to foods served in medieval times.  (Hippocrene Books)    

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GAZPACHOS—PERFECT ON A FRIGID WINTER DAY

 

Gazpachos for winter? Yes, this La Mancha stew is called gazpachos. What looks like squares of pasta are pieces of torta, a thin, unleavened bread.

Here’s a robust and warming stew, perfect for these frigid late winter days. Yes, gazpachos. Take note, this stew is “gazpachos”—plural—not to be confused with Andalusian cold soup (though the origin of the name is the same, as "gazpacho" refers to fragments of bread). 

Gazpachos is an ancient dish, with its roots in the pastoral life of La Mancha. Shepherds tending their flocks far from villages cooked whatever small game they could shoot or bring down with a slingshot, such as hare, rabbit, partridge, dove. Sometimes foraged greens such as collejas, bladder campion; wild herbs such as pebrella, a kind of thyme, or wild mushrooms were added. The meat was stewed over a wood fire and embellished with torta cenceña, a round, unleavened campfire bread that thickened the stew and served as an edible dinner plate.

Tortas for adding to gazpachos stew.

Over the years, gazpachos has been “domesticated,” prepared in home kitchens with chicken and farm-raised rabbit, rather than game. A commercial version of the torta is sold in La Mancha today. It’s a crisp, flatbread, about 15 inches in diameter, that looks, for all the world, like matzah on steroids.  (Tortas cenceñas, pictured at left, can be ordered in Spain from Rincon de la Mancha.)

Homemade torta--flatbreads cooked on a griddle.

Homemade torta is soft and pliable when fresh off the griddle, but, it quickly dries into hardtack. Break it into pieces before adding to the stew, where it cooks up like pasta.

If you don’t want to prepare the homemade version, substitute other unleavened bread/crackers, such as Hebrew matzah or water biscuits (crackers).

I am using dark meat turkey instead of wild game for this stew. The bone-in turkey makes a deeply flavored cooking liquid. Once the meat is tender, it’s skimmed out and stripped off the bones. Instead of foraged greens and wild mushrooms, I’ve added chard and (cultivated) oyster mushrooms. 

Instead of wild game and foraged wild greens, I've added turkey and chard to the stew.

Chunks of meat, soft torta, mushrooms and greens make a hearty winter stew. Serve gazpachos with a D.O. La Mancha Tempranillo wine. 

La Mancha Gazpachos Stew with Tortas

Gazpachos Manchegos

Dark meat turkey lends this stew a slightly gamey taste, reminiscent of wild hare. It's a firm meat that won’t disintegrate easily in slow cooking. If you are substituting regular chicken or farmed rabbit, take care not to overcook the meat. It can be left on the bone or deboned as directed for the turkey. 

Use the same sofrito and tortas to make vegetarian or seafood gazpachos. 

 

Serves 6.

Debone the turkey after cooking.

3 pounds turkey drumsticks and/or thighs

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped red bell pepper

2 teaspoons pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika)

1 cup grated tomato pulp or crushed tomatoes

1 whole head of garlic

6 cups hot water

2 bay leaves

Sprigs of thyme

Sprig rosemary

Pinch of ground cloves

1 ½ cups sliced oyster mushrooms, sautéed in oil (optional)

2 cups chopped and blanched chard or other greens (optional)

6 tortas (recipe follows) or sheets of matzah or 24 water biscuits, broken into pieces

Sprinkle the turkey with salt and pepper and allow it to come to room temperature.

Heat the oil in a deep pan or cazuela. Brown the turkey pieces on a medium heat, turning them to brown all sides, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the turkey.

Stew turkey with garlic, herbs.

In remaining oil, sauté the onion until it begins to brown, 5 minutes. Add the two kinds of peppers and continue sautéing. Stir in the pimentón. Add the tomato pulp and fry a few minutes. Return the pieces of turkey to the pan.

 

Peel off papery outer layers from the head of garlic. Slice off the top of the head, leaving the cloves attached at the root. Tuck the head of garlic into the pan with the turkey. 

Add the water to the pan. Add 2 teaspoons of salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaves, rosemary and cloves. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook slowly until turkey is very tender, turning the pieces occasionally, about 1 hour.

Lift the turkey pieces and head of garlic out of the broth and reserve. Discard bay leaves and sprigs of herbs. When cool enough to handle, strip the turkey meat, with or without skin, from the bones, discarding bones and tendons. Cut the chunks of meat into pieces. Reserve. Squeeze softened garlic from the skins. Mash the garlic and return it to the broth in the pan. (The meat and cooking broth can be stored separately, covered and refrigerated, until the following day. Bring them to room temperature before continuing the stew.)

Add the mushrooms and chard, if using, to the pan. Bring the liquid to a boil. Break the tortas or matzah into approximate 2-inch pieces. Drop them into the pan. Reduce heat to a gentle bubble. Cook the tortas until they soak up some of the cooking liquid, 5 minutes. (If most of the broth has cooked away, it may be necessary to add water before incorporating the pieces of torta.)

Add the pieces of cooked turkey and cook until they are thoroughly heated, 5-10 minutes. Allow the stew to settle 5 minutes. The gazpachos stew can be served in the same pan in which it cooked. If desired, garnish with a fresh sprig of thyme.

Unleavened Flatbreads

Tortas Cenceñas para Gazpachos

Thinly rolled dough of flour, salt and water is cooked on a griddle until blistered and browned. 

Tortas can be made days before using in the gazpachos stew. They turn hard as they cool. Store them in air-tight zip bags. 

Roll the dough out as thinly as possible--cenceñas means "thin;" ácimas means "unleavened."

The tortas can be cooked—with no oil—on a plancha, griddle or cast iron skillet (I watched a YouTube video for homemade tortas where they were cooked on an upside-down skillet of rolled steel on a gas stove!) or baked in the oven. 

Break them up into small pieces to add to the stew. The pieces will soften in about 10 minutes of cooking in the liquid. You can also place a whole one in a bowl and ladle some of the liquid on top to soften it, then serve the stew over it. 

½ cup water

2 teaspoons salt

1 ¾ cups flour plus additional for rolling out

Place the water and salt in a pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir to dissolve the salt. Pour the water into a mixing bowl and allow it to cool to tepid.

Roll dough into balls.

Stir the flour into the water gradually. Once it comes together as a dough, press into a ball and turn out onto a board. Using a little flour if necessary, knead the dough until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Gather into a ball, cover the dough with a damp cloth and allow it to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

Divide the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. Roll them into balls. Keep them covered so the dough doesn’t dry out. Roll the balls out thinly into 8-inch disks. Stack the disks with parchment between them to make it easier to separate them. Cover again with damp cloth.

Cook the disks on a plancha, griddle or cast-iron skillet until they begin to blister and brown in spots, about 1 minute per side. Remove from the heat and allow the tortas to cool. They will harden as they cool.

Torta pieces for gazpachos.

Alternatively, the tortas can be baked (400ºF /15 minutes). Prick them all over with a fork so they don’t puff up in baking. If desired, they can be cut with a pastry wheel into squares. 

Store the tortas in an airtight zip bag.

Add torta pieces to the stew. They soak up liquid.

To use the tortas, cut or break them into pieces—any shape or size. Incorporate them into the gazpachos or other soup or stew during the last 10 minutes of cooking. They will soften, somewhat like pasta, as they cook and soak up cooking liquid.