Cold, refreshing gazpacho is the perfect meal on a hot summer evening. Not only will it cool you down, it also embraces the fresh tomatoes and peppers of the season. Giving the vegetables a quick roasting on the Primo is an easy way to elevate gazpacho- we recommend preparing it the day before serving to allow the flavors to come together and so it can cool sufficiently!
You can see we had quite an assortment of tomatoes and peppers to roast. This made about 7 quarts of gazpacho so adjust to what you have on hand- here is the ratio of ingredients we used:
17 plum tomatoes
8 heirloom tomatoes
8 combined red, yellow & orange bell peppers
4 poblano peppers
1 jalapeno pepper
2 large sweet onions
3 garlic bulbs
3 large seedless cucumbers
Juice of 2 limes
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
¼ cup mild vinegar based hot sauce
¼ cup or so olive oil
½ cup mixed herbs- basil, oregano, chives, marjoram, & parsley
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
Fresh chopped chives for serving
If desired, fresh jumbo lump Maryland blue crab
Load as much as you can on the grill. We find the cast iron griddle is helpful for onions. Also, we would recommend you cut the tops of the garlic bulbs, drizzle in some olive oil on them & wrap them in foil. We let the garlic stay on through two grill-fulls of veggies. Turn the peppers mutiple times to char all sides. Put them in a brown paper bag after you pull them to help steam the skins off. We would only recommend turning the tomatoes once.
We halved the plum tomatoes before cooking. Return the tomatoes to sheet pans when done to help collect juices. The skins will simply pull off – then remove any white core parts from the middle. Remove the seeds over a chinois (fine strainer) on top of the sheet pan to collect juices. Process the tomato meat in batches in a food processor.
Continue with the peppers by removing the stems, seeds, and skins. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulbs.
Process the herbs, spices, and oil into a paste. Peel and process the cucumber. Combine all the ingredients together with the vinegar, hot sauce, and lime juice in a container or bowl big enough! Let everything cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours, however, it will be much better the next day.
If nothing else, top the gazpacho with some fresh chives before serving. However, here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, we felt compelled to top it with some fresh Maryland Jumbo Lump Crab (and maybe a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce.) Grilled or smoked shrimp would also work well here.