There's one dish in particular I've had a craving for lately: salmorejo, a thick tomato soup-like sauce similar to gazpacho. I've never made it before but a quick search online gave me all the information I needed to fill the gaps in my knowledge.
The first thing I did was to tear a slice of stale bread into small pieces. I soaked it in one dessert spoon of white wine vinegar, a splash of water and a drizzle of olive oil. In the meantime I hard-boiled two eggs and cooked some asparagus (two minutes in a centimetre of boiling water with the saucepan lid on).
The only laborious bit is peeling tomatoes, a messy and tedious task. Next time I'm going to try with the skins on, and I'll let you know if it made a difference. Anyway, I chopped the peeled tomatoes, along with two small shallots.
Then comes the fun bit: blend the tomatoes, shallots and bread together with a little bit more olive oil, some black pepper and some paprika. A big electric blender would be ideal for this, so that you can drizzle in the extra oil and some water, if necessary, while it's going. I've only got a hand blender and a mixing bowl, however, so I got splattered quite a bit. My kitchen looked like a scene from a slasher flick by the time I'd finished.
After a few moments I wiped the tomato mush from my eyes and checked the consistency. You're looking for something like a very thick but smooth soup. Serve it in a shallow dish with the asparagus placed in the centre. For the final touches I grated the hard-boiled eggs over the top and added a few flakes of Serrano ham.
You absolutely have to serve it with crusty bread (a bit on the stale side if you want the authentic Spanish experience...) and a Spanish rose wine.
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