Pan Roasted Salmon in Gazpacho Water
Throughout the entire summer, I’d usually get a bowl of gazpacho from The New England Soup Factory down the street from my work at least three times a week. On a warm, sticky, summer day the chilled soup brings your mouth and whole body alive with intense flavors of tomato, onion, jalapeno, and garlic. The combination of flavors is refreshing and has stuck in my mind even though a cold soup in October is like wearing white after Labor Day. I decided to utilize the flavors of gazpacho that I love in a warm entree dish.
I took the major components of this famous soup and pureed them in a food processor. I transferred the pulp into a self made pouch of cheese cloth and let the water slowly drip into a bowl. I never even had to re-season the water because I added enough salt and lime juice to the food processor. In a single spoonful, I could taste every aspect of every single ingredient in its raw state… it was amazing! The flavors were so intense that I didn’t want to do too much to the fish, so I simply pan roasted the salmon and placed it into the chilled gazpacho water.
I topped the salmon with some grilled balsamic green onions and the dish came alive. The contrast in texture and temperature was something new to me but extremely enjoyable. The sizzling hot salmon flaked off into the room temperature “broth” and heated it in your mouth, bringing all the flavors of the gazpacho water alive. The charred and sweet balsamic green onions added a whole new element to the dish as well. I decided to pair this dish with the 2007 Lucien Crochet “Le Chen” Sancerre. A recent article in Wine Spectator talked about how wines from the Loire Valley, France are some of the best all around value wines in the world.
Such precision and quality comes out of this region and it shows in its bone dry whites. This wine is 100% Sauvignon Blanc, with hints of grapefruit and tons of minerality and acidity. The wine was perfect with the dish because the acidity worked with the fish, and it was light enough to let the flavors of the gazpacho water shine through without masking them with oak. If I were to make this dish again, I would probably incorporate one of the other major components of classic gazpacho which is bread. Typically, pureed bread is added to the chilled soup to create more body and texture. I would probably make a homemade rustic crouton for the fish to sit on and soak up all the fresh flavors. Even though the Soup Factory packed up the gazpacho for the Winter, I found a way to recreate as a dinner entree.
