Gazpacho with oriental sardines, Piment d`Espelette and fresh strawberries à la Thomas Vetter

We love soups! But what if it's too warm for stew, when squash season is over and the kids don't want to eat pearl barley anymore? The best solution comes from Spain: in the form of gazpacho! This cold soup is healthy, tastes wonderfully fresh and you can vary it wonderfully.

The original gazpacho, a recipe dating back to Moorish times, was based on garlic, cucumber and bread - the better-known red variant with tomato and peppers was only invented after Columbus brought these new vegetables to Europe from South America.
We were craving something red this week too... and because the first strawberries are so pretty right now, our chef Thomas created a wonderful strawberry gazpacho for us this week.

We are absolutely thrilled and wouldn't mind if this fruit bomb were on our table every day!

Ingredients for 4 persons:

• 2 red peppers
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 - 2 white onions
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 3 - 4 ripe tomatoes
• 1/4 zucchini
• 1 small cucumber
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 - 2 tsp Piment d' Esp e lette (to taste)
• 150 grams of strawberries
• salt and pepper
• some olive oil
• Sardines to fry with oriental spices, La Belle-Iloise

Preparation:
Peel the peppers, remove the core and cut into small pieces. Also peel the carrots, onions and garlic and cut into small pieces with the celery and zucchini.

Briefly roast the vegetables in a hot pot with olive oil (approx. 2 - 3 minutes). Season with a little salt, pepper and Piment d'Espelette, add the tomato paste and sweat for about 1 minute.

Remove the pan from the stove and let the vegetables cool. Wash the tomato, cucumber and strawberries and cut into small pieces and mix into the cooked vegetables.

Remove the sardines from the can and add the marinade to the vegetables.
Then finely puree everything with a blender or blender, add a little olive oil so that the gazpacho becomes nice and smooth.

Optionally, you can push everything through a fine sieve again at the end to eliminate the remaining seeds and pieces. If you like it a little coarser, you can skip this step.

Now season the soup again with salt, pepper and allspice and serve with the sardine (fried or cold, both taste good!). Bon Appetit!

Our conclusion: This soup is a wonderful, aromatic, simple, quick, healthy summer meal that can be varied according to your mood. Our answer to the green smoothie hype!

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As a suitable wine accompaniment, we recommend the Tears of Anima 2016 from Herdade do Portocarro . The taste is intense with notes of tangerines and green plums. In the mouth it unfolds an extraordinary balance between refreshing acidity with notes of citrus and red fruits, as well as a balanced sweetness. A lush, floral bouquet manifests itself on the nose.

Alternatively, we recommend the Alento Rosé 2016 Alentejo . A young, intense Portuguese rosé wine full of joie de vivre - an uncomplicated everyday wine that goes with all dishes, but is also fun without accompaniment.