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room-temperature tomatoes, never refrigerated ones

tomatoes cored and quartered + cucumber peeled and seeded + green pepper stemmed and seeded + garlic. This soup is raw, so the tomatoes are the recipe — a refrigerated or underripe tomato has had the volatile compounds that make it taste of tomato shut down, and nothing later in the process puts them back. Peel the cucumber: the skin is bitter and blends into green flecks that never disappear. Seed it too, or its watery core thins the soup you spent the oil thickening