Make Ahead

Chilled Cucumber-Watercress Soup

August 13, 2014
0
0 Ratings
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

Chilled soup of cucumbers and watercress blended with Greek yogurt and buttermilk, topped with salsa for a hot summer night. A couple of ingredient notes: If you don't have verjus (or verjuice), substitute white grape juice in the soup and white wine vinegar in the salsa. Pequin dried red pepper flakes are not spicy. They add a hint of smokiness to the soup, so omit if you don't have them. It's just a light touch of them. —TheWimpyVegetarian

Continue After Advertisement
Ingredients
  • Soup
  • 3 cups peeled, sliced, quartered English cucumbers
  • 1/4 cups chopped scallions including most of the darker green stalk (about 2 scallions)
  • 1/4 cups coarsely chopped watercress
  • 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt (I use Fage)
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 2 Tablespoons verjus (or white grape juice)
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • big pinch cumin powder
  • big pinch cayenne powder
  • Pequin dried red pepper flakes (optional)
  • Salsa
  • 1 Roma tomato, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
  • 1/4 medium white onion, minced
  • 1/2 avocado cut into chunks
  • 1 teaspoon minced jalapeño
  • splash verjus (or white wine vinegar)
  • drizzle olive oil
Directions
  1. In a food processor purée all ingredients for the soup EXCEPT the pequin red pepper flakes until smooth. Adjust seasoning - you may find you prefer a little more lemon juice or salt.
  2. Pour into a container, cover, and chill for at least 30 minutes, but ideally overnight.
  3. Serve the pequin red pepper flakes separately for people to sprinkle on as they prefer. This kind of dried red pepper flakes are not very spicy, but instead add a nice smokiness to the soup for depth.
  4. Mix the tomato, cilantro, onion, avocado, and jalapeño together, and toss with verjus and olive oil. Serve on the side.
Contest Entries

See what other Food52ers are saying.

0 Reviews