Chilled Cucumber-Avocado Soup with Crab Salad

I love cold soups, especially cold cucumber soup.  It reminds me of hot midday meals in the Caribbean and Mexico.  Of course, eating it at home is pretty good, too.

When I make this dish for guests I want it to transport them the same way it transports me, so I add lots of flavor.  The addition of avocado and coconut milk to pureed cucumber makes the soup creamy-smooth, and adds a pleasant sweetness.  I cut through that sweetness with just enough Thai green curry paste and serrano chile to linger on your palette.  The crab salad, which can be omitted for a vegetarian friendly plate, adds a luxurious element to the dish and compliments the flavors in the soup perfectly.

The soup is best eaten the day after it’s made to give the flavors time to develop.  If your blender is too small to accommodate all of the ingredients (remember to factor the water into your calculation), blend the soup in batches.  It’s worth splurging for jumbo lump crabmeat for this recipe.  The crab is dressed simply, so the relative quality of your product will really show though.

Chilled Cucumber-Avocado Soup with Crab Salad

Ingredients

Cucumber Avocado Soup
2 cucumbers, about 12 ounces each, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 Hass avocados, coarsely chopped
3 teaspoons Thai green curry paste
2 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons finely grated lime zest from 3 limes
2 serrano chiles, seeded and chopped
1 13-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
3 tablespoons lime juice from 3 limes
Fine sea salt
Cayenne pepper
Ground white pepper
Siracha (optional)

Crab Salad (Optional)
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat, picked over
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice from 1 lemon
1 tablespoon minced chives
Black pepper

How to Pit An Avocado

Instructions

1. In a blender, puree the cucumbers until smooth.  Add the avocados, curry paste, sugar, lime zest and chile.  Process until blended.  Add 3 1/2 cups of water, the coconut milk and lime juice and process until smooth.  Transfer the soup to a large bowl and season with salt, cayenne and white pepper to taste.  Cover and refrigerate until chilled, or overnight.
2. When ready to serve the soup, place the crabmeat in a medium bowl and add the lemon juice and chives.  Toss gently to combine.  Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne to taste. 
3. Taste and season the now developed flavors of the soup with salt, white pepper, and drops of siracha for added heat (optional--be gentle).
4. To serve, mound a small pile of the crab salad in the center of a wide soup bowl.  Carefully ladle some of the soup around the crab.  The crab should still be visible above the soup.  Don’t’ submerge it.  Repeat with remaining bowls.  Finish the soup with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper.

Gazpacho Andaluz

This soup is a good example of why Cooks Illustrated is a special magazine. I have very mixed feelings on gazpacho. A good gazpacho can just taste so freaking good. A perfect fresh cold soup for a hot day that really lets ripe tomatoes shine and do their thing. The problem is that 80-90% of the gazpacho served in this country is basically watery salsa, which is not so great as a soup, and not concentrated enough for a tortilla chip. It has the consistency of baby food, no real distinct flavor, and is not really filling at all as a soup. That stuff I can't even finish. This is in a completely different category. Most importantly, it is strained, so it is a silky smooth soup that referred to as 'creamy' though it lacks any cream-like ingredients. It will knock your puree of salsa version of gazpacho on its feet with a slight vinegar bite and a little subtle heat from the serrano chile.

Juices extracted by salt

And absorbed by bread

This is also the kind of recipe where following the process leads to a good result, and the steps matter. Salting the vegetables and allowing the vegetable juice to be strained out then absorbed into the bread and re-added to the puree adds to the volume of intense fresh vegetable taste and ensures the garnish chunks of veggie don't add excess moisture at the end. Seasoning at the end won't break down the cells in the same way. Slowly adding the olive oil into the running blender ensures a fully creamy and blended consistency. Adding too much at once will cause oil to bubble up in the soup. Adding it correctly in a drizzle leads to the effect that the initial pink color of the blended veggies will turn to orange as the oil is slowly added. Letting it all sit for awhile allows the flavors to marry and enhance. 

Ideally, it should sit overnight, but we have definitely made it early in the morning for an evening dinner and it's been stunning. Just give it a couple hours, and remember to taste right before you serve to adjust seasoning, though it probably won't need much more than the small drops of oil and vinegar served on top, and with pepper and diced veggies to be passed around for diners to garnish as desired. You can substitute red wine vinegar for sherry vinegar and HALF the amount of table salt for the kosher salt, but I prefer kosher salt. We have fairly consistently chosen chives as our herb of choice for this recipe. I imagine basil would add quite different notes, but you really just can't go wrong with chives.

Creamy Gazpacho Andaluz

Ingredients

* 3 pounds (about 6 medium) ripe tomatoes , cored

* 1 small cucumber , peeled, halved, and seeded

* 1 medium green bell pepper , halved, cored and seeded

* 1 small red onion , peeled and halved

* 2 medium garlic cloves , peeled and quartered

* 1-2 small serrano chiles , stemmed and halved lengthwise

* Kosher salt (or half the amount of table salt)

* 1 slice high-quality white sandwich bread , crust removed, torn into 1-inch pieces

* 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil , plus extra for serving

* 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, plus extra for serving (or red wine vinegar if you need a substitute)

* 3 tablespoons finely minced chives (you can substitute parsley, or in a pinch basil leaves)

* Ground black pepper

 Instructions

Roughly chop 2 pounds of tomatoes, half of cucumber, half of bell pepper, and half of onion and place in large bowl. Add garlic, chile, and 1½ teaspoons salt; toss until well combined. Set aside. Cut remaining tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper into ¼-inch dice; place vegetables in medium bowl. Mince remaining onion and add to diced vegetables. Toss with ½ teaspoon salt and transfer to fine-mesh strainer set over medium bowl. Set aside 1 hour. Transfer drained diced vegetables to medium bowl and set aside. Add bread pieces to exuded liquid (there should be about ¼ cup) and soak 1 minute. Add soaked bread and any remaining liquid to roughly chopped vegetables and toss thoroughly to combine. Transfer half of vegetable-bread mixture to blender and process 30 seconds. With blender running, slowly drizzle in ¼ cup oil and continue to blend until completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Strain soup through fine-mesh strainer into large bowl, using back of ladle or rubber spatula to press soup through strainer. Repeat with remaining vegetable-bread mixture and 1/4 cup olive oil. Stir vinegar, minced herb, and half of diced vegetables into soup and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 2 hours to chill completely and develop flavors. Serve, passing remaining diced vegetables, olive oil, sherry vinegar, and black pepper separately. See how adding the oil in a drizzle takes the pink puree and makes it orange?