Gazpacho

I love the cold Spanish tomato soup gazpacho in the summer, when the city is hot and tomatoes are gorgeous, in season, and local. I don't have a recipe, just a pattern: lots of whatever tomatoes look best, preferably a mix of various colors and heirloom varietals, a little bit of cucumber, some peppers, a spot of Sherry vinegar, and a lot of top-quality Spanish olive oil. What follows is merely a suggestion, to help you get your proportions right.

Gazpacho

You absolutely want to make this in a blender, which will give you a beautiful, smooth consistency and a perfect emulsion as you drizzle in the olive oil. I'm not a fan of gazpachos made by hand, particularly if you aren't going to peel, core, and seed your tomatoes. It is like eating a weird, chilled salsa. If you don't have a full blender, an immersion blender or food processor ought to work in a pinch, but it won't be the same.

Don't make this recipe ahead of time—despite conventional wisdom. While the flavors will meld, you will also lose some of the raw vegetal taste that is the hallmark of the soup, and the acid in the tomatoes will pickle everything else.

I like to brunoise some peppers and peel some cucumber to make a garnish, which I arrange in the soup bowl and then pour the gazpacho over. The presentation is gorgeous, and the vegetables give some crunch. I don't include that in the recipe below; use whatever looks best.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ripe tomatoes, assorted shape and color, a mix of heirloom varietals preferred but plum fine
3/4 pound cucumber (about 3/4 a large cucumber), peeled
1/2 red bell pepper
3 green jalapeños, seeded
1 clove garlic, germ removed
about 1/4 cup filtered or spring water
3/4 cup top-quality Spanish olive oil
about 2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
sea salt, to taste

Roughly chop the tomatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, green jalapeños, and garlic and place in a blender. Run the blender on high, until fully and smoothly puréed. Push the ingredients down with a spoon or add a little bit of water if needed to help the solids purée. Once fully blended, add a little more water as needed to adjust consistency. You want the soup just slightly runny at this point, as it will thicken up considerably once you add the olive oil.

Return the blender to high and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Continue blending until the contents are fully emulsified. If not thick enough, add a little more olive oil, but taste the soup first to ensure the olive oil isn't already overpowering.

Add the sherry vinegar and several pinches of sea salt. Blend on high again until fully combined. Taste and adjust vinegar and sea salt as needed.

You may refrigerate up to 30 minutes to chill, but no longer—the soup is best fresh. Serve in chilled soup bowls or glasses, garnished as you wish. Pairs well with a chilled fino Sherry or a Rosé (rosado) wine from the Rioja DOC, Spain.

Halibut Ceviche with Jalapeño, Cilantro, Olive Oil

As I wrote in my Thai-Style Bay Scallop Ceviche recipe, ceviche (also cebiche and seviche) is a Peruvian dish of citrus-marinated seafood. The citrus imparts wonderful flavor, but it also pickles the fish, denaturing the proteins, giving the flesh a uniform whiteness, and allowing us to serve the fish otherwise raw.

Many fish and shellfish are traditionally prepared in ceviche, including corvina, red snapper, toothfish, halibut, mahi-mahi, and scallops. We use halibut in this recipe, but any fresh, white, not-too-oily sea fish is a candidate. With the exception of a little swig of olive oil at the end—which makes a wonderful difference—this is a simple, traditional recipe. Consider it more of a "how to" guide to ceviche and use it as a base.

The citrus will cure the fish in as little as five to ten minutes, but I like the imparted flavor (and piece of mind) from about a 30 minute cure. Do experiment!

Halibut Ceviche with Jalapeño, Cilantro, Olive Oil

Note: While the ceviche process denatures the proteins with acid, the fish is nonetheless not brought to temperature. Consuming raw seafood may increase your susceptibility to illness.

Makes 4 servings or 8 smaller sides.

Ingredients:

about 2 pounds halibut fillet
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
2 cups freshly-squeezed lime juice
3 tablespoons brunoise green jalapeño
3 tablespoons red bell pepper
1 tablespoon plus 1/4 cup hand-torn cilantro
4 tablespoons of your favorite grassy olive oil
large or flakey finishing sea salt, to garnish

Prepare the fish: Skin and bone. Remove any darker pieces of flesh, particularly anything along the blood line. Pat the remaining flesh dry. Cut into thin slices not unlike sashimi servings.

Combine the halibut, red onion, and lime juice in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Gently stir to coat. Cover and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes, gently stirring halfway through.

Remove from the refrigerator. Gently strain the fish and onions through a mesh strainer. Transfer the fish to a clean mixing bowl.

Add the jalapeño, red pepper, and 1 tablespoon of cilantro. Gently stir to combine.

Plated, garnished, and ready to serve

Divide among plates. Top each serving with a glug or two of olive oil. Garnish with a large or flakey finishing sea salt, such as Bali Pyramid Salt. Garnish with the remaining cilantro. Serve. Pairs well with a Spanish white wine of the Albariño grape.

Green Peas with Feta, Mint, Red Onion

There are a few vegetables that are almost assuredly as good or better frozen than what you can get fresh. Green peas are at the top of any such list. The moment they are picked, the enzymatic reaction begins that converts sugar to starch and sweet pea to simply tasty legume. Time and heat are enemies of the green pea. Use as soon after purchase as possible, and refrigerate in the interim.

Frozen peas allow us to enjoy sweet, tender peas year round. Seek out a high quality brand that flash freezes the peas immediately after harvesting, with no residual water, salt, or other additives. Given that this recipe is best with sweet peas and is served cold, frozen peas are a great choice. Of course, if you have access to farm fresh green peas, go for it. You'll likely want to blanche, shock, and chill them, if so. If using frozen peas, just defrost and drain.

For this recipe, you'll want to whip out the real deal: traditional feta from Greece. Now a protected designation of origin (PDO), real Greek feta is made with sheep's milk and a small (<30%) amount of goat's milk. The result is mild and creamy, but with a pronounced tang and salty finish. Buy your feta in large blocks along with enough brine to keep it moist—feta dries out quickly once removed from the brine. To use, remove from the brine but don't pat dry and crumble into large but edible pieces with a fork.

This dish is one of Marlena's favorites, and a dinner staple during these warmer months. It makes a great first course, yielding 6 servings, although we often enjoy it as a main course, where it provides 3 servings. An old-world Sauvignon blanc, such as a white wine from Sancerre, is an excellent pairing.

Green Peas with Feta, Mint, Red Onion

Makes 6 smaller servings.

Ingredients:

2 pounds frozen green peas
(about 6 cups thawed green peas or 2 bags frozen green peas), thawed and drained well
1 large red onion, diced about the size of a green pea
3/4 bunch mint, stemmed and hand torn
1/3 cup your favorite grassy olive oil
2 teaspoons good red wine vinegar, such as Banyuls
2 teaspoons verjus (verjuice)
1/2 pound traditional feta, crumbled into cubes
sea salt, to taste

In a large mixing bowl, combine the green peas, red onion, and mint.

In a small mixing bowl or cup, combine the olive oil, verjus, and red wine vinegar. Whisk until emulsified. Pour around the edges of the bowl with the peas, gently folding the ingredients together and evenly distributing the vinaigrette. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Add the feta to the mixing bowl. Gently fold together. Lightly season with sea salt—note the feta is salty, the peas are delicate, and if you oversalt you will extract a lot of moisture.

Plated and ready to serve

Serve. Pairs well with a white wine of the Sauvignon blanc grape from the Sancerre AOC, Loire Valley, France.

Aperol Pompelmo

The weather is warming up, perfect for a refreshing apéritif, my Aperol Pompelmo!

The pairing of Aperol and grapefruit (pompelmo in Italian) is hardly novel, but I could not find any definitive recipes, let alone a name. But Aperol and grapefruit juice, perhaps with a bit of sparkling water, is such a wonderfully refreshing drink it deserves a recipe, a name.

Aperol Pompelmo

Aperol is an Italian apéritif. Often compared to Campari, both derive from pre-war formulas but are today manufactured by the same Italian beverage conglomerate, Gruppo Campari. Like Campari, Aperol is made from an infusion of citrus peel, flowers, and alimentary herbs, and has a moderately bitter, invigorating taste. But in contrast to Campari, Aperol is less bitter, less alcoholic (11 versus 25%), more floral. You might call it a beginner's apéritif, although I find plenty of uses for both.

Apéritif refers both to any preprandial drink and a specific category of drinks best suited for arousing the appetite and preparing the palate, without getting one drunk or full. A Campari & soda is a light, refreshing start to a meal, while the common choices of a martini or a beer while waiting at the bar are more likely to get you drunk or full, respectively, than prepare you for a great meal.

For this drink, use whatever grapefruit is your favorite, whatever looks best at the market. Here, I prefer grapefruit closer to tart on the tart-sweet scale—none of that sweet ruby red crap. And an oily, aromatic peel (you can smell them from a foot away at the market) is key for the garnish.

Makes 1 drink.

Ingredients:

1.5 ounces (1 jigger shot) freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice
1 ounce (1 pony shot) Aperol
2 drops Fee Brothers' Grapefruit Bitters
1 ounce (1 pony shot) sparkling water
1 large grapefruit peel

Fill half of a Boston shaker with large ice cubes. Combine the grapefruit juice, Aperol, and grapefruit bitters. Stir rapidly for 15 seconds and then let sit until the outside of the shaker starts to sweat.

Fill an old fashioned glass (a lowball) with large ice cubes. Simultaneously pour in the stirred liquids and the sparkling water. Garnish with a grapefruit peel. Enjoy.