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Jacques Pépin Makes Cold Tomato-Cucumber Soup

Premiere: 12/2/2021 | 00:05:15 |

Pépin loves a cold soup in the summer, and this recipe for tomato-cucumber gazpacho puts good use to the less attractive cucumbers from his garden. He adds Tabasco sauce for some heat, and Greek yogurt for creaminess.

About the Episode

Serves 2 to 4

“In the summer I make a lot of cold soups with vegetables from my garden. When I get a lot of cucumbers and tomatoes, I blend them together to make this gazpacho. If you want it to be very smooth, you can pass it through a fine strainer. Adding the yogurt changes it to a creamy soup and serving it with shredded basil and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil elevates it to an elegant first course.” —Jacques Pépin

Ingredients:

2 cups diced cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch dice
1 large ripe tomato
1/3 cup diced mild onion
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped jalapeño
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of Tabasco, optional
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice wine vinegar
½ cup water
1½ cups Greek yogurt
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup basil leaves, shredded, for garnish
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Method:

Cut the tomato in half, horizontally and squeeze out the seeds into a small bowl, chop the tomato flesh into small pieces, you should have about 2 cups. Place the tomato, onion, jalapeno, and water in a blender and blend until smooth. Add the cucumber, salt, Tabasco, and vinegar, and blend. Add the yogurt and oil and blend until smooth or to your liking. If you want a very smooth soup, strain it through a fine strainer at this point. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours or pour into 4 chilled bowls. Top with the basil leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

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TRANSCRIPT

(soft music) - Hi, I'm Jacques Pépin, and this is 'American Masters At Home.'

(soft music) During the summer, I like to make cold soup very often.

And very often, in my garden, as you can see, I have those ugly cucumber, oh God.

So, I do a soup, sometimes only with cucumber, sometimes only tomato, sometimes a mixture that I'm doing today.

Here, of course, what you do first, you wanna peel that cucumber, and I do that directly on top of the garbage.

Makes my life easier.

You cut it in half, and you can see a lot of seed.

So, again, you take the seed, took the edge of your fork to go along the side, turn it around to go along the other side, and now to remove it.

I think I need two cup of cucumber.

I'm gonna put two cup of tomato too.

That tomato is a large tomato.

It should be about two cup.

I'll start with the, actually, with the tomato.

What I wanna do is actually press some of the seed out, and I will strain that juice back into my soup.

So, let's see how much do I have here?

About one and three quarter, close to two cups.

Add this juice back in there, or you could put the seed in it too, but I tend to remove it.

I'll start with that in the blender.

Two cups of this I have about a third of a cup of onion, and a jalapeno here.

I'll taste it.

Tastes just like green pepper, no hotness, so I'll probably put some Tabasco in it a little bit later.

And put a little bit of water.

I wanna make sure that the skin of the tomato is processed nicely.

So, here, let's see this.

So, your proportions there are not very important.

If you have a little more cucumber, a little more tomato, doesn't really matter.

So, let's see.

Gazpacho is, of course, specialty of the southern part of Spain.

Now, I have two good cups that I'm gonna put in there.

One teaspoon of salt.

And, as I said, you can always put a bit of Tabasco, especially for me here, it doesn't really have much taste, so I put a few drops of Tabasco, maybe a tablespoon of rice vinegar.

I will taste it.

It's good, and now the yogurt.

So, I'm putting a good cup, cup and a half of Greek yogurt in there.

Again, a little more, a little less, it isn't that crucial.

And, of course, what I have also is a quarter of a cup of olive oil.

And here it is.

Have a beautiful soup, summer soup.

Dash of salt again, always taste.

So, this is it.

My soup is ready now.

Refrigerate it, like, as you can see, a beautiful pink color, What I like to serve, as the garnish on top, is a little julienne or chiffonade, we call, of basil.

Smells wonderful.

And a few drops of olive oil on top, again, for color and taste.

And here we are, tomato-cucumber gazpacho for summer.

Happy cooking. (soft music) Thank you for joining me.

For more, subscribe to this channel, or watch here.

Thank you, and happy cooking. (soft music)

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