A Perfect Summer Soup, Reimagined: Spilled Milk #354

Salmorejo with nectarines is a Spanish classic with a twist, a perfect (and perfectly hearty) chilled summer soup

Today’s newsletter includes:

• musings on that great summer soup, gazpacho, and its denser cousin, salmorejo

• an easy, customizable recipe for salmorejo with nectarines; you’ll get lots of optional garnishes to really tweak this to your taste

• a step-by-step, hands-on video walking you through the process of blending and assembling this soup to perfection

I see your gazpacho, and raise you a nectarine in your salmorejo.

There’s something poetically subversive about salmorejo, Spain’s thick-set cousin to the more famous gazpacho. While gazpacho flirts, thin, acidic, cucumber-bright, salmorejo seduces. It’s richer, denser and unapologetically bread-thickened, made to be spooned rather than sipped, its surface often adorned with jamón and crumbled egg like confetti at a flamenco wedding. Originating in Córdoba, salmorejo is — to my taste — summer’s most luxurious ritual: a dish born from peasant practicality that’s managed to retain its working-class soul while ascending to fine dining menus and air-conditioned bodegas across the Iberian Peninsula.

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Traditionally, it’s a marriage of stale bread, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil and sherry vinegar, emulsified into a coral-toned cream as glossy as a still pond at sunset. But the Spanish have never been doctrinarians when it comes to flavor; they’re masters of evolution. Enter the nectarine salmorejo, a seasonal riff that adds the honeyed tang of ripe stone fruit to the bright acidity of peak tomatoes. The result? A soup that reads like a love letter to late summer: sweet, savory and sun-drunk. The nectarines add perfume and silkiness, the olive oil grounds it, and the sherry vinegar still sings. It’s sensual, surprising and even more refreshing for me than the original. Like its cold-weather Italian cousin pappa al pomodoro and the classic snack pan con tomate, it’s a great way to make sure no bread goes to waste.

Garnish it with crumbled goat cheese or jamón if you like, but I’d argue a scattering of fresh herbs and a whisper of chili oil is all it needs. Serve it cold, in shallow bowls or vintage coupes, and eat it with someone who understands that good soup can feel like foreplay.

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