Salmorejo cordobés
Photo: P.Lechien · CC0

History

Salmorejo is the tomato descendant of mazamorra, the Roman almond-and-bread soup that Córdoba's olive workers ate cold in the fields. Tomatoes reached Spain from the Americas but took two centuries to reach the mortar; the first written record of salmorejo is in the dictionary of the Real Academia Española in 1737. The city now has a Cofradía del Salmorejo Cordobés, a brotherhood that specifies Guadalquivir tomatoes, Montalbán garlic, Córdoba telera bread and vinegar in the canonical version. What separates it from gazpacho is the ratio: far more bread, no cucumber, no pepper, and enough olive oil emulsified in to make a cream you can stand a spoon in.

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Common allergens: Gluten, Egg

Make it at home

Yield Serves 4Hands-on 20 minTotal 2 hr 20 minDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 1kg ripe tomatoes, quartered
  • 200g stale white bread, crusts removed
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • 150ml extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon sherry or wine vinegar
  • Fine salt
  • 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • 60g jamón serrano, torn into shreds

Method

  1. Blend the tomatoes to a smooth puree, then pass through a sieve if you want it very fine.
  2. Tear the bread into the tomato and leave it to soak for 15 minutes.
  3. Add the garlic and blend again until completely smooth.
  4. With the blender running, pour the olive oil in a thin steady stream until the mixture turns pale orange and thickens like a loose mayonnaise.
  5. Season with vinegar and salt, blend once more, then chill for at least two hours.
  6. Serve in shallow bowls topped with chopped egg, torn jamón and a final thread of olive oil.

Tip from the editors. Use one garlic clove, not three. Córdoba salmorejo should taste of tomato and oil, with the garlic sitting well behind them.

Where to eat salmorejo cordobés

Salmorejo cordobés in Córdoba

Taberna Salinas ★ 4.6

€€ AndalusianCorredera

Taberna Salinas serves salmorejo, flamenquín and fried aubergine off Córdoba's Corredera, in a barrel-lined room the Salinas family took on in 1924.

OrderSalmorejo, then flamenquines de jamón serrano.

TipAn earlier tavern stood here from 1879; the Salinas family business itself dates from 1924.

Directions

La Salmoreteca ★ 4.5

€ Street foodCentro

La Salmoreteca is the salmorejo stall inside the Mercado Victoria in Córdoba, running about a dozen versions off a book that catalogues 675 of them.

OrderThe classic salmorejo first, then one of the odd ones like beetroot or squid ink.

TipChef Juanjo Ruiz rewrites the stall's dozen salmorejos by season, so the odd flavours rotate.

Directions

Regadera ★ 4.5

€€€ AndalusianRiberaChef Adrián Caballero

Regadera sits on Córdoba's Ronda de Isasa with the Guadalquivir outside, Adrián Caballero cooking cordobés classics from a kitchen open to the room.

OrderThe salmorejo, then the flamenquín, both rebuilt rather than reinvented.

TipThe riverside tables go first at sunset, so ask for one when you book rather than on arrival.

Directions

Bodegas Campos ★ 4.5

€€€ AndalusianRibera

Bodegas Campos has poured in Córdoba since 1908, a warren of patios and barrel-signed rooms off Calle Lineros serving rabo de toro and salmorejo.

OrderRabo de toro, the dish the house has cooked for over a century.

TipAsk to walk through the barrel rooms before you sit; the signed butts are a century of visiting names.

Directions

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