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COLD SOUP FOR THE SOUL
The history and ingredients of Andalusia's answer to the summer.
By Pinaki Chakravarty

A cold soup is usually as unpleasant as a wet blanket, and will no doubt be enough reason to shout for the maitre d' and head for the door. But a little known Andalusian answer to the Spanish summer is as welcoming as a chilled tomato. It is, in fact, not far away from it, in a liquid, soupy sort of way. These obscure recipes from equally obscure towns like Málaga were born as the poor man's soup, thickened with yesterday's bread and sharpened with vinegar, mashed with olive oil and garlic and doused in water. Evolving over generations, and continents, the gazpacho has now come into its own, and its earthy beginnings are nothing more than a cold tomato base on which five star chefs write their own inspiration.

Only a select few of the finest establishments in Oman serve this cold dish. There's The Chedi, with its smooth, calming, almost lotion-like answer to the day, a soup that mirrors its atmosphere. The Grand Hyatt Muscat's versions range from Tuscany's purée-like soup to Chef Marin's fanciful off-the-menu creation, set in glass and with the flamboyance of its curved shrimp. And just off the beach, there's the Bait al Bahr at the Shangri-La's Barr al Jissa Resort and Spa. You can have a darker, more involved version here, with fish dumplings on the side.

Whatever your preference, you will appreciate the delicate balance of earthy history and modern creative flair, all packed into a soup that is cold instead of hot. Its eighth century origins, 1960s American revival and current international versions share some ingredients but not much else. Not even the tomato base is common, for gazpacho owes no loyalty to the vegetable, beginning as nothing more than a bread soup. Over the ages, as cooks dipped their ladles into it, the soup took on regional flavours. Ground almonds, pine nuts, peppers and even the occasional sliced grape were thrown in and came out the better. From thick purées to salads to liquid so thin it was drunk by the glass, it also varied greatly in texture. One strikingly different example is the gazpacho manchego. As the name implies it seems to have originated from the La Mancha region in Spain, but it is also popular in other areas in the center and southwest of the country. Instead of a cold soup, it is a warm stew. The main ingredients are meat, generally that of a rabbit, and special kind of flat bread, and may also include mushrooms. Bread, not tomato, is the ingredient that really identifies a gazpacho. And old bread is even better.

"Don't always think of gazpacho as soup," insists Chef Marin of the Grand Hyatt Muscat. "Think of it as a sauce. Think of it hot as well as cold. It goes beautifully with grilled chicken or fish." Marin is as comfortable with Tuscany's largely Italian menu as he has been with Swiss chocolate, gruyère and rösti, and can whip up a mean gazpacho if you ask nicely. His version, which looks much more processed than the puritan offering on the menu, can also double up as a sauce, minus its grand shrimp garnish. Instead, it offers itself as a foundation over which go sautéed shallots, spinach and, finally, a tower of trembling golden sea bass. Despite such lavish outpourings, the gazpacho is most at ease at home, as the many Spaniards who keep a jug of it in their fridge will swear to. Marin agrees. "It is one of the simplest things in the world to make, but remember: the secret to a good one is to find the correct balance between sweet and sour, using the right proportion of sugar to vinegar. You may have to adjust the sugar level slightly according to the sweetness of your tomatoes. These quantities are based on the sweetest, reddest, most over ripe ones it is possible to find." You can also have a dash of gazpacho in your salad at Tuscany, a tangle of greens with a lump of pristine white mozzarella as the centre of attraction. The soup itself – the one listed on the menu – looks like freshly squeezed tomato, ranging from a pulpy consistency to runnier edges. There's a spot of ricotta in the middle to break the spread of tomato.

Meanwhile, over an artificial moat and private beach, the Bait al Bahr serves it own recipe. This is a deeply involved blend of such character-laden ingredients as tamarind, Worchester sauce, Tabasco and aged white bread. And while you unravel this deliciously convoluted concoction, you can pop a dumpling of hammour, skate, cream and egg white between sips. Such possibilities will reaffirm this restaurant's reputation for not just exceptional seafood, but a backdoor nouvelle cuisine treatment when you least expect it. A lot of restaurants serve seafood, and a few are also on the beach. But the Bait al Bahr does it differently, not just better.

While you're sampling their gazpacho, take full advantage and try a few other exceptional dishes. The white tomato soup with poached sea bream takes over where the gazpacho ends. Like a ghost crab scuttling across silent shores, its very faint hint of tomato is barely present, and even more delicious when you first detect it. That creamy overture is mirrored in the subaiti – buried under a crust of potato, with sautéed prawns, leek, butter lettuce fondue and cumin spiced shellfish sauce. At the other end of the spectrum is the sautéed kingfish, with deep fried squid over mushroom couscous and a fiery red sauce beneath that tastes as hot as it looks.

In the end, once you've sampled the handful of offerings of gazpacho available here, you'll realise that this cross between a cold drink, salad and soup is as much an invitation to create your own version as it is an opportunity to taste the evolution of the soup.

THE 1968 Málaga Gazpacho
First published in The New York Times. Ingredients for six people

Preparation
Combine all the ingredients in an electric blender. Blend at high speed, pausing occasionally to scrape down with rubber spatula when necessary. Pour the mixture through a large sieve placed inside a mixing bowl. Press and stir with a wooden spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids. Taste the soup for seasoning and add more salt and vinegar if desired. Serve chilled.

Gazpacho and scampi cocktail
Chef Marin’s creation off the menu

Preparation
Heat the vinegar in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until steam rises from the liquid. Let it reduce very slowly for two to three hours, until it has thickened to a syrupy glaze. If you boil it too hard the acid will remain and make the glaze too sharp. Reducing the heat slowly and gently results in a much softer taste.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and cover and let sit in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, remove the thyme and blend the ingredients in a blender until the gazpacho is smooth. Grill the scampi and let it cool down To complete, ladle the cold soup into a glass, place the scampi in the center and garnish this with the lightly marinated garden leaves. Drizzle with the balsamic reduction and olive oil, and place the grissini and foccacio crouton on top.

This dish looks absolutely fantastic, as theatrical and over the top as the decor at Tuscany. Since it isn’t listed on the menu, though, you’ll have to ask for it specifically, or try it at home.

Gazpacho

Preparation
Cut the tomato, bread, onion, pepper, garlic and cucumber into small pieces and place in a bowl. Add the vinegar, tamarind juice, Worchester sauce and fish stock. Mix together and place in a fridge for few hours.

Put the tomato mixture in a liquidiser and mix it till it is smooth. Add the olive oil slowly while straining through a sieve. Add salt, Tabasco and pepper to taste, and place in a fridge till serving time.

skate DUMPLINGs
Served with the gazpacho

Preparation
Cut the raw hammour in pieces and place them in the blender till you get a smooth paste. Add the egg white, cream, salt and pepper and mix it together. Add the shredded skate and coriander to the mixture. Make small balls from the mixture and poach them in boiling water for a few minutes. Then let them cool down.

Serve the gazpacho in a bowl. Add a few pieces of the dumplings, decorate with coriander leaves and drizzle olive oil over this.

This is all assuming you know what skates are: cartilaginous and carnivorous fish with flat pectoral fins continuous with their head, two dorsal fins and a short, spineless tail.