On the hottest days, people seek out the coldest foods, but what is one to do to quell a craving for soup: Chill it!About 1917, that's exactly what Louis Diat, chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York, did when he turned a popular hot soup combination into an icy one by cooking, puréeing and then chilling his mixture of leeks, potatoes, cream and other good things.
His creation was called vichyssoise. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, Diat came from Bourbonnias, France, not far from Vichy, where the inspiration for his soup came from. The book says that Diat used recollections of a soup prepared by his mother, but hers was served hot. In addition to serving the soup cold, Diat sprinkled it with fresh chives.
Cold soups did exist before Diat's creation, such as the iced tomato and mixed vegetable-based gazpacho, a Spanish term meaning "has evolved over the centuries," which is definitely true in how gazpacho has been made over the years. However, because vichyssoise was served in fine dining rooms in North America it helped give cold soups some cachet and stimulated chefs to create other cool, sip-able creations.
For this column I created a vichyssoise-like soup, but used asparagus instead of leeks and gave the soup a rich garnish of sour cream and sliced smoked salmon. I made a second cold soup with ripe, fresh tomatoes and topped it with a crunchy, fresh corn salsa. My third soup was made by simmering, puréeing and chilling fresh, ripe red cherries with a sweet-and- sour mix of ingredients that included brown sugar and balsamic vinegar.
As when preparing a first-class hot soup, there are some rules to follow when preparing a cold soup and it all starts at the supermarket or farmers' market.For the richest, most lively tasting cold soups, one must purchase ingredients that shine with those qualities, such as ripe, colourful summer fruits, fresh-picked cucumbers, thick and sweetly fleshed roasted bell peppers, quality vinegar, flavourful stock, quality dairy products and aromatic fresh herbs.
As when preparing a first-class hot soup, there are some rules to follow when preparing a cold soup and it all starts at the supermarket or farmers' market.For the richest, most lively tasting cold soups, one must purchase ingredients that shine with those qualities, such as ripe, colourful summer fruits, fresh-picked cucumbers, thick and sweetly fleshed roasted bell peppers, quality vinegar, flavourful stock, quality dairy products and aromatic fresh herbs.
A soup designed to be served piping hot will quickly lose its appeal if it arrives at the table lukewarm. Conversely, the same distaste will occur if you serve a cold soup only slightly chilled, not icy-cold and bursting with palate-awakening flavours. Be sure your cold soup is chilled in the fridge at least four hours before serving, or overnight. To keep the soup cold while enjoying it, serve it in ice-cold bowls.
Before serving your cold soup, give it a stir and taste it again for seasoning, just in case it needs another dash of salt or freshly ground black pepper. I prefer to use shallower bowls for soups that will be topped with an edible garnish, such as the corn salsa in today's recipe for cold tomato soup. If you use too deep a bowl, the vibrantly coloured salsa, which enhances the look of the soup, will sink to the bottom out of sight.
For presentation purposes and to keep a cold soup super-chilled, I sometimes like to fill a shallow pasta bowl with crushed ice and then nestle my bowl of cold soup on the ice. I also sometimes serve cold soups in a decorative glass, such as the martini glass I used for my cold asparagus soup recipe.