When life serves you cucumbers ...
... make cucumber soup!
Two things combined today, a surfeit of cucumbers (ten in total) from the glasshouse and Chris in bed with a sore back from doing housework. Housemaid's back? There's a never rains but it pours aspect to growing your own produce, related to making hay while the sun shines. In this case it was, make cucumber soup while you can't go out in the sunshine. Chris diligently peeled, scraped out the seeds and chopped eight of the cucumbers. He didn't put any on his face.
"Cucumber soup?" you might say. That doesn't sound very good. Cucumbers are not know for their excellent flavour, more for their texture, which is likely to be lost in soup. However, cucumber soup impresses many who try it. There are plenty of ingredients that make cucumbers taste more interesting and our soup contains quite a few of them. It looks good too.
What would you think might be in cucumber soup. The roast chick peas are obvious, and you can probably pick the yoghurt. Sneaky ingredients are the tahini, avocado (thank you to our friend who gave us most of her Avo Tree order because she had an oversupply) and the smoked paprika. You can eat the soup either hot or cold – that's got reactions from a few people who think that cucumber soup would have to be eaten cold. Honestly, it's great either way.
It's a flexible recipe too - if you have a glut of courgettes you can add some of those in. If you don't have avocadoes, add a bit more yoghurt. If you like hot food, add more cayenne. If more people turn up for dinner, increase the yoghurt and avocado quotient.
Having extolled the virtues of cucumber soup, here's my recipe, cobbled together from about five different options that I investigated on the internet.
PA HARAKEKE CUCUMBER SOUP
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
4 cucumbers
1.5 cups stock
0.5 tsp smoked paprika
pinch cayenne pepper
2 avocadoes
1 cup tahini paste
1 cup yoghurt
1/4 cup parsley or coriander leaves
Fry chopped onion and crushed garlic. Add cucumber (peeled, seeds scraped out, chopped) and stock. Throw in as much smoked paprika and cayenne pepper as you think you would like. Cook for around 20 minutes until the cucumber is soft. Purée the cucumber. Add avocado, tahini, yoghurt and parsley/coriander, puréeing after each addition. I let it cool a bit before I add the yoghurt.
If you like roast chick peas to put on top, drain a can and pat the chick peas dry (wet chick peas don't work as I found out when I was lazy with the drying). Spray them with oil and sprinkle them with spices - I often use curry powder and a bit of chilli. Roast at 200C for 20-30 minutes until they are crispy.
Try and enjoy!
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