Cold Soup: revisiting squash

Some years ago, Fran Lebowitz wrote an incredibly funny book, called "Metropolitan Life." It included an essay on food and cooking, which made a great number of many "on point" comments. One comment had to do with cold soup, however. I'm paraphrasing, but she wrote, essentially, that cold soup is very hard to pull off, because inevitably your guests wind up thinking that if they had just gotten there a bit earlier, they could have gotten it hot.

Well, my guests are just about always on time, and when soup is supposed to be hot, it's hot. I have no problems serving hot soup during the summer, but sometimes, a cold soup is just what you want. It IS true that there aren't that many cold soups that come to mind: gazpacho, of course, which I love, and all of the dessert fruit soups, which I don't (once, I had a cold cherry soup that reminded me of pepto bismol, both in terms of color and taste). You can eat vichissoyse cold, and I have. I thought it was like eating cold mashed potatoes. I DO like Italian panzanella, which is more a "sop" than a soup, because of all the bread in it, but that's served at room temperature, rather than cold.

There is also something ironic about people wanting cold soup during the summer, because "who wants to spend time in the kitchen?"
Uh, before you can make it cold, you have to cook it, dimwit. You save NO kitchen time in making most cold foods. You just make them well ahead of the time you plan to eat them, and then cool them off. But don't fool yourself for a minute in thinking that most cold foods involve no cooking. Uh uh.

Well, this past weekend, the weather reports called for even hotter weather during the week. And there is one day of the week (Tuesday), where my schedule is absolutely crazy. So having a complete, cold meal ready for eating on Tuesday was appealing . I roasted a chicken and it's sitting in the fridge. And there will be a salad, probably some cold potatoes too.

I also had a whole bunch of the most exquisite looking, baby squash from Franca, the madwoman of the strawberry in the fridge (Franca's farm is called "berried treasure," because of her wonderful strawberries. But she grows other, incredibly beautiful vegetables. And her farm is in upstate NY, while Nevia's is in Southern New Jersey. So, when the season has past for Nevia, it is just beginning for Franca. Double dipping with two wonderful women, the goddesses of the south and north).

Having beautiful vegetables in your fridge is very inspiring. Instead of feeling threatened, with the thought of "what in God's name do I do with a three pound zucchini (remind me to tell you the story of Nana and the three pound zucchini sometime), you feel like "Should I do this or should I do that, or what shall I do with these veggies?"

Ok, maybe I feel that way. We all know I need a life. But the squash were inspiring me, and out came cold squash soup. And out came a LOT of it. Easily, two quarts. So we had it for lunch on Sunday, with the tomato confit, gave some to Laura, and the rest is for dinner tonight. Try this. It's worth the small time investment, because the yield is terrific.

You'll need two medium sized onions, and two pounds of small squash. I used yellow zucchini, but you could use Lita squash, or baby patty pans, or anything you like. The color of the soup will change depending on the squash you use, but it will all be lovely and cool looking. You will also need a quart of stock of some kind. I used chicken stock, but you could make this a vegetarian soup, with vegetarian stock. I would stay away from water, because squash doesn't have a big flavor profile, and it will need some help. Herbs are nice, but not necessary. If you decide to use them, go for something with a lemony profile, like lemon thyme or lemon verbena, or a mint, if you like mint. Finally, you have another option, which I used, in dairy products. Anywhere from half a cup to a full cup of milk, cream, yogurt, buttermilk, whatever you like.

Chop the onions fine, and then cut up the squash into uniform, but uneven pieces. You don't have to be precise here. Put a few tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil in a big soup pot, and add the onions, with a teaspoon or so of salt. Start sauteeing them until they get translucent. It won't take long. Then add the squash, and stir everything together. You want the onions and the squash to mix, nicely. After about five minutes, add the stock and the herbs, and lower the heat. Cover the pot, and leave it alone for about twenty or thirty minutes. You want the squash to be very, VERY soft, and that will happen under these conditions.

When the vegetables are so soft that they're falling apart when you prod them with a fork, let the whole mess cool. You can eat the soup like this, but you can also put it through a blender, which is what I did. I did it in batches, because there was so much of it. I got this beautiful, yellow soup, that needed just some more salt to make it really good.

I could have stopped there, but I had about 3/4 cups of heavy cream left from ice cream making, and I poured that into the pureed soup and stirred. This , of course, enriched the soup, and also lightened the color.

Interestingly, in sitting in the fridge, overnight, the soup went from a mild, creamy flavor to one with a decided tang. I'm not sure if the squash "soured" the cream, if it "soured" on its own, or what happened, but the bottom line is, it has the taste of creme fraiche about it, and it's GOOD.

You could probably do the same thing with other vegetables of the season. Carrots sound good, and actually, so do cucumbers for that matter. Peppers too. So, maybe we can treat this one as a "master recipe," and come back to it with other vegetables. What do you folks think? You gonna try it with another vegetable? If you do, I want reports back.

Yeah, you DO have to spend some time in the kitchen, even though it IS very hot. So you may as well maximize the time. Roast chicken and cold squash soup? Is it summer, or what?