Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580

July 5, 2006:  Cold Cucumber Soup

In the summertime hot weather, cold cucumber soup is really cooling, and you don’t have to turn on the stove.  All these recipes have either cream, yogurt, or buttermilk, as well as chicken broth or vegetable broth used to grind up the cucumber.

CLASSIC COLD CUCUMBER SOUP

• 4 cucumbers

• 1½ cups chicken or vegetable broth

• 4 Tbsp. white vinegar

• garlic to taste

• sour cream

Cut the stem end off the cucumbers and grind them against the remaining cucumber; this draws out the bitterness, though I don’t know how.  Peel the cucumbers, halve them, and then seed with a spoon.  Chop up and put it in the Cuisinart.  Thin it with the broth.  Add vinegar and garlic and grind it all up.  At the end, add sour cream (light sour cream is acceptable).  Chill and serve cold.  It’s really refreshing.  Also called “white gazpacho.”

Variations can use buttermilk or yogurt instead of sour cream, or regular milk you sour yourself with vinegar. 

There are many variations to this basic soup.  Some have beets and even mangoes.

A similar dish is raitas from India, which is made from chopped cucumber (not peeled),  chopped banana, fresh cilantro, and yogurt.  This produces a cooling taste against hot food.

Does the type of cucumber matter?  Use large cucumbers, not the English type.  They are milder and softer (tender), and you don’t really have to peel them. 

CUCUMBER SALSAS

There is a Mediterranean kind of salsa to pair with poached salmon made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, capers, some olive oil, parsley, other herbs, maybe garlic, everything all chopped up.  Poach the salmon and serve at room temperature with this as a condiment.

Another cucumber dish found in many cultures has the cucumber marinated in vinegar and sugar, mixed with onions.  This is also served as a cooling side dish with something spicy or for summer cooling.  If you make it the day before, it will soak up the marinade better.  It’s almost a kind of pickle, perhaps a “fresh pickle.”

A caller from Champaign reports using zucchini with tomatoes and onions and vinegar in this salsa dish, because cucumbers are sometimes not accessible.  The zucchini can be chopped, ground, shredded, however you like it.  He likes to serve it at room temperature, not refrigerated.  He adds a bit of Tabasco sauce for a “bite.”

BEET SOUP THAT TASTES LIKE CUCUMBERS

A caller told about a Beet Soup that tastes like cucumbers.  This is a Lithuanian dish called saltibarsciai that was usually served as part of the Christmas Eve dinner, which traditionally had 13 meatless dishes.  It ends up a lovely Pucci pink color.  There are both beets and cucumbers in it.

• 3 large beets, boiled and skinned, or 2 small cans sliced beets

• 5 hard-boiled eggs

• 1 large cucumber

• 12 ounces sour cream

• lemon juice

• dill weed

• chives

• salt

• pepper

• 1 small onion

• 1 quart pre-boiled and cooled water

In a large bowl, pour the juice from the cans of beets (if using canned variety).  Slice beets in matchstick shape (as if your matchsticks were cut in three).  Dice cucumber into pieces even smaller.  Add to the bowl.  Chop the eggs and add to the bowl.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Bring the level of liquid to the level you desire using the pre-boiled water.  Add about ¼ cup lemon juice.  Sprinkle with the dill and chives.  Refrigerate for at least six hours or until the beets taste more like cucumbers and the egg whites are hot pink.  It’s best to refrigerate overnight.  To serve, add soup slowly to the sour cream and beat out all the lumps.  Stir sour cream mix in with the rest of the soup; adjust seasonings, usually adding more lemon juice.  Serve it with a hot boiled potato sitting in the middle, or with rye bread.

Another recipe can be found at http://www.eat-online.net/english/cookbook/lithuania/saltibarsciai.htm

POTATO-BEET SALAD

The beet soup reminded a caller from Urbana of a favorite dish.  It doesn’t actually have cucumbers but you could put them in.  It’s a kind of potato salad with beets.   Boil your potatoes and beets, cut into large chunks, add a hard-boiled egg, a little dill, onion, and cucumber if you wanted.  It makes a nice summer salad.    Dress it however you like potato salad: mayonnaise, a little mustard, whatever other flavorings you want.

CEVICHE

A caller from Champaign only likes cucumbers in a salad with salad dressing, especially the little pickling cucumbers, they are crunchy.  But she recently made a batch of ceviche which makes a good summertime appetizer, is simple to make, and is almost like a cold soup. 

• 12 ounce can V-8 juice

• ½ pound shrimp (larger, with tails on, unless you want it to be more of a soup)

• 1 ripe avocado, diced

• splash of  Tabasco sauce

• half an onion, diced

• ¼ cup lime juice

• cilantro to taste

• 2 limes, chopped up, sprinkled around

This is better the next day.  It’s like a gazpacho, but with the seafood.  If you add a little bit more liquid, it’s more of a soup; with less, it becomes more of an appetizer.  Doyle suggests using the hot, spicy variety of V-8 juice.

TSATSIKI

A caller from Gilman likes the cucumber sauce served with gyro sandwiches, how is that made?  It is yogurt-based, with chopped cucumber, perhaps oregano, but does it have spices?  Some recipes for this sauce, which is called tsatsiki, can be found at this web site:  http://www.recipecottage.com/sauces/tzatziki05.html