Ajoblanco: Cold Almond and Garlic Soup

Ajoblanco, besides being a cultural magazine that has appeared and disappeared several times, is a dish of traditional Spanish cuisine. I find it a very modern cream soup. Served well chilled, it's ideal for nourishing us while we fight the heat. As it's quite high in calories, it also works less cold (but without being hot) at other times of the year, like now.

I won't give you the exact quantities of the ingredients, because when I called my mother to ask her for the recipe, she gave me the ingredients in the style of a bit of this and a bit of that. It's the typical dish you have to keep tasting: add an ingredient, blend, taste again, until you find the ajoblanco you like.

In my case, my wife isn't a big fan of garlic, and I added very little; even so she told me it was very tasty but had too much garlic, so next time I'll make a “no-garlic-blanco”. It sounds like a joke, and it was when I wrote it, but now that I see it written down it doesn't seem like a bad idea. I'll try some combination without garlic, maybe with basil or something else that adds fragrance and isn't garlic. I'll keep you posted.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 80 g blanched almonds
• 1 garlic clove (at least)
• 4 slices of bread
• a good splash of vinegar
• a little oil
• water

Method

Soak the bread in vinegar and water. Then simply blend everything very finely. I did it in the Thermomix: first I ground the almonds, 20 seconds at maximum speed, then added the garlic clove, and little by little the rest of the ingredients, and kept it at maximum speed for a while, say a minute.

To go with the ajoblanco, as a garnish, some grapes or little pieces of melon are ideal.

I'm delighted with the photo: I used a sheet of yellow felt, one of my children's craft materials, as the background; since it can be bent, it gives a perfect backdrop.

🌐 Llegeix aquesta recepta en català