August Recipe: Chilled Cherry Soup

I had an idea, because I get a kick at being able to get fruits and veg­eta­bles at Granville Island Mar­ket in sea­son and then build a meal or two around that ingre­di­ent (like the Iron Chefs, but not every dish on the menu). So I’m going to try and make this a monthly post (well, we’ll see if I can when Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary roll around, but for the time being, I think I’m prob­a­bly good until November).

This month, we’ve seen a lot of blue­ber­ries and cher­ries at the mar­ket. Most of the cher­ries have been the sweet ‘Lapin’ vari­ety, but just yes­ter­day I saw one ven­dor who had Sour ‘Hun­gar­ian’ Cher­ries. I knew imme­di­ately that this was my chance to make the East­ern Euro­pean chilled cherry soup that I remem­ber hav­ing as a teenager. I’ve also been want­ing to do my part to sup­port the Okana­gan cherry farm­ers, who lately have had some really tough times due to weather prob­lems and, of course, ris­ing fuel costs.

So here’s the recipe:

Hun­gar­ian Chilled Cherry Soup

(mostly from Joy of Cook­ing, with a few adjustments)

Ingre­di­ents

6 cups of pit­ted cher­ries: 4 cups sour ‘Hun­gar­ian’, 2 cups sweet ‘Lapin’.
2 cups Gewurtz­traminer wine (or any other dry but inter­est­ing white wine, like an Aus­tralian or New Zealand Sauvi­gnon Blanc)
1/4 cup sugar
4 tea­spoons corn­starch
1 table­spoon lemon juice
1 table­spoon orange juice
2 tea­spoons grated orange rind
mint leaves and sour cream for garnish

Direc­tions

Add half of the cher­ries to a large pot with 2 cups of water and the 2 cups of white wine. Bring to a boil and cook until the cher­ries are just ten­der (about 15 min­utes). Purée either with a mini-blender in the pot (eas­i­est) or sep­a­rately in a food proces­sor until it is smooth and return to the pot. In another bowl, mix sugar and corn­starch. Add some of the cooked cherry soup to it and mix until it is a smooth paste with most of the sugar and corn­starch semi-dissolved. Add that to the pot and stir.

Add the other half of the cher­ries, along with the lemon juice, orange juice and grated orange rind. Cook for another 10 min­utes or so, for the newer cher­ries to get a lit­tle more ten­der. Taste; if it is too sweet, add lemon juice. If too sour, add sugar. Let cool and chill before serving.

Serve with a dol­lop of sour cream and some mint leaves. It can be either served as a soup before the meal or as a dessert.

We had it tonight, fol­lowed by some Turkey Schnitzel, Far­fel (which is not Far­falle, the bow-tie pasta, but a barley-shaped pasta that I serve with a lit­tle but­ter, salt and pep­per and paprika), and some cole slaw. Not 100% authen­tic there, but we wanted some cold cab­bage for the sum­mer night. Cucum­ber salad with a sweet vinai­grette and fresh dill would prob­a­bly work just as well. As our (nearly) neigh­bor in Cam­bridge, Julia Child would say, ‘Bon Appetit’.