Cucumber and avocado is a wonderful combination in a soup. Cucumbers by themselves are too watery and mild, and avocados by themselves are a little rich and unctuous, but together they make a soup that’s fresh and bright, yet rich enough to be satisfying.
This is a pureed soup recipe. The challenge in making a good pureed soup is in balancing the flavor of the soup so that every bite doesn’t taste the same. Sometimes that means adding a few more ingredients than seems necessary. I always find that pureed soup recipes with only three or four ingredients look appealingly simple on paper, but always seem to lack something to keep them from tasting flat — the tang of acid from wine, citrus or cultured milk, the muskiness of a spice, a hint of heat from chiles or hot sauce, the bite of onions or garlic.
Cucumber avocado soup is a perfect recipe for the doldrums of August, when you want something cool and refreshing and don’t want to spend more than a few minutes in the kitchen. We’ve happily served this soup at Duo for the last few summers (when a lot of us in the kitchen don’t feel like cooking either).
It takes about 10 minutes, start to finish, to make this recipe. The real effort should go not into the cooking, but the shopping — to picking out the freshest, juiciest local cucumbers, the ripest avocados, the greenest herbs.
Note: If you want to turn this into a meal, garnish it with some sauteed shrimp.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Cucumber Avocado Soup
Makes 2-3 quarts.
6 medium cucumbers, ends cut off, peeled, seeded and roughly chopped
2 ripe avocados, pitted, peeled
1 cup scallion greens, washed
1 cup cilantro leaves, washed
2 cups buttermilk or yogurt
2 teaspoons toasted, ground cumin seed
1-2 jalapeños, seeded and roughly chopped
Juice of 1/2lime
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions
Add half the ingredients to a blender and blend soup smooth. Repeat with remaining half. Taste, adjust seasoning and add additional jalapeño if necessary. Chill the soup thoroughly before serving. Serve within 48 hours (the soup will start to oxidize and discolor after a day or so).
