Cold summer soups (sweet or savory)

[bloviatrix]

I also adore chilled soups. Some weeks ago I toyed around with an alternate form of borscht which used ginger as a flavoring as opposed to dill and found it worked quite well.

When tomatoes are plentiful and over-ripe I make a yellow tomato soup. The recipe was in the NY Times several year's ago and is from Waldy Malouf.

In a pot, heat up some olive oil. Then sweat onions and garlic. Add about 6 large yellow tomatoes that have been roughly chopped and saute for about 5 minutes.

In a skillet toast some corriander seeds and cumin seeds until fragrant. Add them to tomatoes along with some water.

Bring tomato mixture to boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes. When soup cools, puree and strain. Chill the soup until cold.

You can serve this with a cilantro-onion relish: red tomato, diced, red onion - finely diced, chopped cilantro, lime juice, evoo and minced jalepeno.

[Lawen]

I've been reading MFK Fisher lately and tucked away in a chapter on soup is a brief section on cold soups. She gives a recipe for Vichysoisse (really a recipe for cream of potato with a "chill thoroughly and serve next day as Vichysoisse" footnote), a Gazpacho, and best and oddest of all, a Cold Buttermilk Soup. I made it a few days ago; was easy, unique, and I really liked it:

1.5 lb shrimp, cooked and chopped

1/2 med. cucumber, fine dice

1T minced fresh dill

1T prepared mustard (dijon worked well for me)

1t salt

1t sugar

1 quart Buttermilk

Mix together shrimp, cucumber, and seasonings; stir in buttermilk; chill thoroughly. 6 servings.

Edited June 7, 2004 by Lawen (log)

[Betts]

At a recent eG get together in Minneapolis, our Spanish attendee served a White Gazpacho that was superb and is now in the eG recipe index. There was a lot of discussion about it on the Heartland board posted under " Another Minneapolis get together"

[Gifted Gourmet]

I know that fresh garden peas are often used in chilled soups, but beyond that my knowledge of ingredients falls away.

Chilled pea soup

This is my favorite and when I am unable to find fresh peas, I use the frozen petite ones with great success!

[chefdg]

Cantaloupe soup with a little dessert/sweet white wine, juice of one lemon. Put it with lobster, and crispy ham, to send it over the top.

[fimbul]

Every summer I play around with what originally was a warm poblano soup, but has morphed into a tomatillo-chile thing.

Um. The recipe below is less a recipe than a translation into English from the language known as Seat-of-the-Pants or Littleo'this-Littleo'that.

Finely chop several (8 largish?) poblanos. Finely chop a clove of garlic and half a white onion. Sweat onions and garlic in butter in a large pot until translucent, then add the poblanos and some salt to the pot. Sweat until softening, then add chicken stock, water, or a combo to cover. Cook until tender.

Meanwhile, pull the husks off a half dozen medium-sized tomatillos and roast them in a heavy pan until soft and blackened. Add a serrano to the pan if you like more heat.

Working in batches, puree the chile mixture with the tomatillos in a belnder. Add salt and lime juice to taste, and a handfull of cilantro leaves, if desired.

Strain through a seive and chill.

To serve, thicken the soup with cream, yogurt, sour cream, or a mixture, and adjust seasoning to taste. I always garnish with a dollop of sour cream, cilantro, and a sprinkling of ground ancho or chipotle chiles.

[Jinmyo]

Here is a "gazpacho" I often make (with many variations):

Bit of Stolli vodka. Add chopped oi sabagi kimchi, sliced golden plums and apples, chopped plum tomatoes. Then add sieved tomato puree and water or tomato juice to almost fill the serving bowl.

Today I resteda bocconcini atop the vegetables in each bowl with a few garlic croutons.

[Jinmyo]

Every summer I play around with what originally was a warm poblano soup, but has morphed into a tomatillo-chile thing.

Nice.

[aliwaks]

I am a huge gazpacho fan...(I think we had a thread on this awhile ago so I will try not to repeat myself)

but here's my watermelom gazpacho recipe

Organic tomato juice (yellow if you can find it)

chiffonade fresh mint

chiffonade fresh cilantro

diced seedless watermelon (I use red with yellow tomato/yellow with red)

halved tiny pear tomatoes in as many colors as you can find

diced small jalepeno (or more or a shot of hot sauce depends on your heat resilience)

lime juice

diced sweet onion

Slivered radishes

S&P

Evoo

blend about one third the veg & herbs in the juice and leave the rest whole, add S&P to taste..serve with slick of evoo on top & maybe some crumbled feta ( or a slice of feta run under the broiler)

or garnish with a poached shrimp or chunk of lobster if you like or maybe some creme fraiche...add a shot of vodka if you wish

[LJC]

Here is one from a NY restaurant that I used to work in. When it gets hot I start to feel the craving; I think I may have to make it tonight.

Cold Cucumber and Crab Soup:

juice of cucumbers

lime juice

drop of nam pla

chifonade (sp.?) of mint

a touch of fine chopped chili pepper (green thai)

lump crab meat

salt & pepper

It's heaven!

Edited June 9, 2004 by LJC (log)

[ninadora]

how do you juice a cuke?

[Monica Bhide]

I just started a discussion in the India forum on Indian inspired cold soups with the two I made last weekend... sorry that I did not see this or I would have posted here first!

Indian cold soups

[Clerkenwellian]

chilled asparagus soup is awesome.

It is one of duties at one of the restaurants I work at... so here is what I do.

Sweat some shallots.

chop asparagus into pieces that are a couple of inches long.

put together with shallots in a big pot.

cover 2/3rds with cream and finish covering them with water.

cook til simmering, but do not boil...you want tender asparagus.

remove the cream and reserve.

puree the asparagus by adding cream until it reaches your desired consistency.

season to taste and chill, but keep the left over cream because it may get thicker than you want while cooling.

enjoy....

you can garnish it with mint chiffonade and pistachio oil, that's nice.

That looks really good - what weight of asparagus do you allow for per person?

[Episure]

I learned this from Kelsie Kerr, who currently cooks at Chez Panisse, when she was teaching classes in the SF Bay Area.

You must have absolutely ripe, delicious tomatoes to do it.

Concasse ripe yellow tomatoes and ripe red tomatoes - keep them separate all the way through every step of the recipe.

Puree in a blender until smooth.

Season to taste with salt, white pepper and a little EVOO.

Chill. Or serve at room temp.

Serve by pouring both into a bowl at the same time so that you end up with 1/2 of the bowl red and 1/2 yellow. I confess that I do this in a bowl that is small enough that I can use my flexible dough scraper as a divider.

You can garnish with a little drizzle of oil, or some croutons or snipped chives or an edible flower.....you get the idea.

If you don't mind rustic you can skip the concasse part, or you can puree and then strain if it works better for you that way.

This gives you remarkable bang for the buck. It's certainly reasonable, calorie-wise. And when tomatoes are in season - yummy, yummy!

Thanks Stephanie, I am definitely making this. It's simple and I am sure it looks beautiful and tastes good.

[LJC]

"how do you juice a cuke?"

Use a juicer.

[GG Mora]

Curried Tomato-Buttermilk Soup. Don't really have a recipe, I just grind up some garlic and tomatoes, thin with buttermilk, and season with curry and S&P.

[FatTony]

Cantaloupe soup with a little dessert/sweet white wine, juice of one lemon.  Put it with lobster, and crispy ham, to send it over the top.

This sounds amazing. Any chance of a recipe?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Cantaloupe soup with a little dessert/sweet white wine, juice of one lemon.  Put it with lobster, and crispy ham, to send it over the top.

This sounds amazing. Any chance of a recipe?

Possible??

uses some of the same ingredients ...

[Bicycle Lee]

chilled asparagus soup is awesome.

It is one of duties at one of the restaurants I work at... so here is what I do.

Sweat some shallots.

chop asparagus into pieces that are a couple of inches long.

put together with shallots in a big pot.

cover 2/3rds with cream and finish covering them with water.

cook til simmering, but do not boil...you want tender asparagus.

remove the cream and reserve.

puree the asparagus by adding cream until it reaches your desired consistency.

season to taste and chill, but keep the left over cream because it may get thicker than you want while cooling.

enjoy....

you can garnish it with mint chiffonade and pistachio oil, that's nice.

That looks really good - what weight of asparagus do you allow for per person?

Uhhh....I end up serving about a cup and a half per person, so maybe ten asparagus spears?? I make it at one of the restaurants I work at, so I start with maybe 3 pounds of asparagus...and a quart of cream.

sorry i can't be of more help

[rasputin1072]

i have always enjoyed cold vichysoise (i can't remeber spelling)

[babka]

Two gifts from the bulgarians:

soup:

1 32 oz yogurt.

two cucumbers, skinned and seeded if american, diced.

salt.

dill.

olive oil.

walnuts.

mix. chill. eat.

drink:

yogurt-salt-water on ice.

Edited June 15, 2004 by babka (log)

[babka]

forgot my other summer standby (it's raining....what can I say?)

minted cantaloupe soup:

numbers are what I wrote in my recipe book and are not representative of reality, necessarily.

1/4 C sugar

2 Tbs honey

1 Tbs lime juice

1 C water.

simmer until sugar dissolves. Add at least 1/4 C, and I think I do 1/2 C, fresh mint leaves. Simmer a minute or so, remove from heat, steep to room temperature. Strain and press liquid out of leaves over

4 C cantaloupe flesh (about 1 1/2 lb melon.). Let sit for 20 minutes or so, then puree and chill.

use additional lime juice, salt, and less sugar to bring flavors up, depending on how good your melon is.

Edited June 15, 2004 by babka (log)

[purplewiz]

I've been reading MFK Fisher lately and tucked away in a chapter on soup is a brief section on cold soups. She gives a recipe for Vichysoisse (really a recipe for cream of potato with a "chill thoroughly and serve next day as Vichysoisse" footnote), a Gazpacho, and best and oddest of all, a Cold Buttermilk Soup. I made it a few days ago; was easy, unique, and I really liked it:

1.5 lb shrimp, cooked and chopped

1/2 med. cucumber, fine dice

1T minced fresh dill

1T prepared mustard (dijon worked well for me)

1t salt

1t sugar

1 quart Buttermilk

Mix together shrimp, cucumber, and seasonings; stir in buttermilk; chill thoroughly. 6 servings.

Thanks VERY much for posting this recipe - I made it for a light supper last night, and it was outstanding. If anything, the leftovers this morning were even better - the flavors had really blended nicely. I served it with a spinach salad.

Marcia.

[Jaymes]

Since I'm posting this in early December, it's not exactly 'cold soup season' (in North America anyway), but wanted to add this link for cold Senegalese Soup, so that it'd be easy to find when next summer rolls around.

In response to a posting on the dinner thread about a quicky blender version of this soup, Suzilightening wrote to tell me of a soup that they served at a restaurant where she once worked.

Here's the link: Cold Senegalese Soup

She adds that they always served it garnished with toasted coconut, although does say that they served it hot.

It looks just wonderful -- cold or hot -- and I'm eager to try it.

Thanks, Suzi!!!

[handmc]

My roasted carrot w/pablano chile soup with honey, lime and crem fraiche that I made for Thanksgiving was as tasty cold as it was warm.