Spanish Vegetable Soup with Cheese Sticks

Ingredients

• 5 slices of white bread
• 6 tomatoes
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 onion
• 0.5 cucumber
• 1 Garlic clove
• 400 ml tomato juice
• 50 ml olive oil
• 50 ml lemon juice
• 1 tbsp paprika powder
• a pinch of cane sugar
• Salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 300 g puff pastry
• 100 g grated Parmesan (fresh)
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 egg yolk

Instructions

1. 1.

   Wash, clean, halve, deseed and remove the white membranes from the bell peppers. Peel the cucumber. Briefly blanch the tomatoes in boiling salted water. Shock them in ice water, peel, quarter and remove seeds. Reserve the flesh.

2. 2.

   Remove crusts from four slices of white bread and soak in 4-5 tbsp lukewarm water. Dice a fifth slice and fry in 1 tbsp olive oil until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.

3. 3.

   Peel and finely dice the onion and garlic. Cut the cucumber lengthwise, remove seeds.

4. 4.

   Cut about one‑fifth of each tomato, bell pepper and cucumber into small cubes and mix; cube the remainder roughly.

5. 5.

   Pass the tomato flesh through a sieve and add to the tomato juice.

6. 6.

   Blend the coarsely cubed vegetables, onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomato juice, drained bread, lemon juice, paprika powder and olive oil until smooth. If the soup is too thick, add a little water.

7. 7.

   Season with salt, sugar and pepper and pour into glasses. Garnish with small vegetable cubes and croutons if desired, serve chilled on ice.

8. 8.

   Preheat the oven to 225 °C.

9. 9.

   Thaw the puff pastry. Brush the edges of each sheet with water and roll out on a floured surface into a roughly 40 × 40 cm square. Sprinkle one half with Parmesan and pepper, fold the other half over it, then roll several times with a rolling pin. Cut the dough into ~2 cm strips and twist each strip spirally. Brush the cheese spirals with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle as desired. Place on a parchment‑lined baking sheet and bake in the hot oven for about 15 minutes.