Zucchini & Avocado Cold Soup with Crispy Sticks

This is how I like to define a soup: smooth, comforting and hot steam coming off the top. Take a spoonful, blow a couple of times, slurp a little and slurp it all.. aaaahhhh! and repeat. 

Then, I learned about cold soup. No kidding.. I really didn't know.

In India, no matter how high the temperature shoots in summer and how humid it gets, we still like to eat hot sandwiches and hot lentil soups with equally hot rice/roti . Then, we cool ourselves off with some nimbu pani (lemon juice) or some chilled ice-cream.

The idea of having a cold soup didn't sound that appetizing to me, but after gawking and spotting at so many gazpacho and summer soups, I got pretty inspired. It looked colorful, refreshing and absolutely summer-y. So I thought that if I didn't try it now, it will just add up in my bucket list for next year! 

If you had visited my blog before or saw the recipe list, you will figure out that I love trying new dishes. So, this was yet another interesting attempt I made, hoping that I could change my old school definition of soup.

As per wiki, Gazpacho is a cold Spanish tomato-based raw vegetable soup, originating in the southern region of Andalusia. I did not make a gazpacho but something similar to that. Maybe, my next attempt on cold soup would be a gazpacho.

This is a simple soup with zucchini, avocado and few other vegetables which I cooked partially and then blended it to give a creamy texture. To go with the soup, nothing seemed more interesting than a crispy puff pastry stick, mixed with some sharp asiago cheese and some chilly flakes to add the heat.

When I served it to Arvind, he took a couple of spoons and then looked at me and kept staring for a while. Yeah! that was clear enough.. he didn't enjoy it as much as I did. He finished the crispy sticks but the soup, that was left for me..

You could use some other vegetables if you wish, I however restricted mainly to zucchini, some peas and avocado.  

Zucchini & Avocado Cold Soup with Crispy Sticks

Kankana Saxena

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Servings 0

Ingredients

 

For the soup

• For the crispy sticks
• 2 zucchinis (roughly chopped)
• 2 avocados - 1 avocado chopped and 1 avocado pureed
• 2 celery sticks (chopped finely)
• 1 medium onion (chopped finely)
• 1 cup peas
• 2 cup chicken stock
• 1 tbs grated ginger
• salt
• pepper
• oil

For the crispy sticks

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• ½ cup grated asiago cheese
• 2 tbs chilly flakes
• 1 egg

Instructions

 

• In a pan, heat two tbs oil and saute the ginger and onion until they are cooked through.
• Add celery, zucchini and keep cooking for another 10 minutes.
• Then, add the chicken stock and season with salt and pepper.
• Once everything is cooked through, remove it from the pan and blend it to a smooth mixture.
• Transfer it to a bowl and add peas, pureed avocado and the chopped avocado.
• Let it cool down completely.
• To make the crispy sticks, unfold pastry sheets on a lightly floured board.
• Beat the egg with few drops of water to make a egg wash.
• Use a pastry brush and brush the egg wash on the pastry sheet
• Sprinkle cheese and chilly flakes over the surface and pat it down to make sure it sticks to the sheets.
• Slice the pastry into thin sticks.
• Very gently, either twist it or swirl it.
• Transfer it to a baking pan and bake it at 400 F for about 15 minutes or until they are golden brown in color.
• Sprinkle some lemon juice on the soup and serve it cold with the crispy spicy sticks or swirls.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Servings