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, ‘Bön Appetit’.