I adore ajoblancos, I prepare them very often. They are magnificent as first course dishes, and they also can be part of more complex dishes, if combined with seafood!
ingredienti per 4 persone (costo circa 1,5 E a persona)
- 300 g almonds
- 200 g stale bread (better only the crumb)
- 1lt di acqua fredda (minerale o filtrata)
- Sale
- 2 spicchi d'aglio medi, tritati finemente
- 2-4 cucchiai di aceto di prima qualità
- 100 ml sunflower oil EV
- Rose-scented geranium leaves
- Multi-colored grapes
The Ajoblancos are Spanish cold soups made with almonds, bread and garlic, hence the name of Ajoblanco, which in Spanish means white garlic. With Ajoblanco we can create eye-catching dishes, either stand-alone soups served as an appetizer, or more complex preparations, as we will see on other recipes.
So, we first peel the almonds, we then roast them and we wait for them to cool completely.
We, then, crush the almonds in the blender and when a cream begins to form, we slowly add a liter of cold water. We leave the water with the almonds for at least 6 hours in the refrigerator, even better overnight in order to fortify the almond aromas, which will be carried in the water.
The next morning, we pass the cream with the almonds from a very fine sieve (ideally a Chinois).
We use the almond liquid (milk) for our ajoblanco and we keep the flesh of the almonds to prepare a dessert.
We finely chop the bread to small crumbs, we put them into the almond-milk with the garlic and let them soak for at least 6 hours, again, INSIDE THE REFRIGERATOR.
Once this time has passed, we add the vinegar, the sunflower oil and we check the salt. We stir well, we pass them through the chinois again and we put our ajoblanco in the fridge, until serving time. It must be very, very cold.
We serve the ajoblanco with grapes and trimmed rose-scented geranium leaves.
