I made Summer Borscht in honor of my move to Greenpoint

Sometimes I see recipes on various websites and blogs that sound delicious, so I copy and paste them into an email, and send it to myself. Then I file them in a folder in my email entitled "RECIPES". The problem is, I sometimes forget to click on that folder when I am in the mood to cook something.

That is what happened with this recipe, which I originally saw on the blog Not Eating Out in New York. I emailed it to myself almost a year ago (October 13, 2009 to be exact) and only just thought of it and made it the other week.

As Laura mentioned, it has been HOT in NYC and this is a nice, chilled soup which only requires a tiny bit of stove time to make.

This was also the first real meal that I cooked in my new apartment in Greenpoint, and while I was making it, I realized how funny that my first cooking endeavor there would be borscht, since Greenpoint is a largely Polish neighborhood full of restaurants serving lots and lots of bowls of the famous soup. I think there was something subliminal going on here.

So this is the recipe, with my notes!


Jui Shih’s Summer Borscht
(makes about 6-8 servings)

about 5 medium-sized beets, boiled or roasted until tender, peeled and diced *I boiled the beets, which was nice and easy. You could also do this ahead of time if you want, because it is really the only time consuming element of the dish.
about 2 English cucumbers, diced - I used cucumbers that I bought at the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint too!! A very Greenpoint meal.
about 3-4 medium tomatoes, diced
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth (chilled or room temperature)
2 cups plain yogurt
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (or more to taste)
1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
fresh lemon juice and zest to taste (optional) - I went for it.
chopped scallions or chives for garnish (optional) - I omitted.
sour cream to garnish (optional) - Omitted.


Reserve any juices from the beets, tomatoes and cucumbers while chopping and combine them in a large pot or bowl with the broth and yogurt. Add the vinegar, dill, a pinch of salt and pepper, and taste. Sugar can be added to cut the acidity as well, to taste. Add optional lemon juice and anything else to taste. Top each bowl with optional garnishes of chopped scallions or chives, extra dill, and/or a scoop of sour cream.

*I also used the hand blender a bit to make the soup a little thicker. I only blended it until the pieces of vegetable were a bit smaller and some had been pureed. I think the soup benefits from the texture of the crunchy veggies, so don't go overboard if you take this advice!*

I made gazpacho just like the kind I had all the time in Spain!

I spent the summer of 2003 in Granada, Spain, where I became insatiably addicted to two things: olives and gazpacho. It was the summer of that record breaking heat wave in Europe, and I just could not get enough of this simple, nutritious, refreshing soup. Since then, I still eat olives constantly, but I had to go through gazpacho withdrawal--nobody, not even fancy restaurants, makes it like they do in Spain. In the US, it's always more like salsa in a bowl--chunky with lots of other vegetables and heavy on the cilantro and cayenne, which is more Mexican than Spanish. But the real thing is actually a thin, simple, vinagery soup, with a slight salty/sweet bite, sometimes garnished with chopped veggies like cucumber, bell pepper, etc.

A few weeks ago, years after I'd lost hope of ever finding anything resembling the gazpacho I once ate every day for a whole summer, I did a simple search on epicurious and found this recipe for Classic Andalusian Gazpacho, adapted by Gourmet from a famous restaurant in Cadiz, a small city on the Costa del Sol. It looked promising: garlic, soaked bread, tomatoes and SHERRY VINAGER (duh! how could I not have thought of that!) a little cumin (that I would not have guessed), a little sugar, a little salt, a little olive oil.

As soon as I started mixing the ingredients, I knew my gazpacho mania was on its way back, and I think it's here to stay.

Here's the recipe, copied and pasted with comments:

Classic Andalusian Gazpacho

Ingredients

• 1 (2-inch-long) piece baguette, crust discarded (I used ciabatta)
  
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar (preferably "reserva"), or to taste
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
• 2 1/2 lb ripe tomatoes, cored and quartered
• 1/2 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil (preferably Andalusian hojiblanca)
• Garnish: finely chopped red and green bell peppers (as you can see in the photo above, I also garnished with chopped avocado, which isn't exactly traditional but whatareyougonnado.)
  

Soak bread in 1/2 cup water 1 minute, then squeeze dry, discarding soaking water.

Mash garlic to a paste with salt using a mortar and pestle (or mince and mash with a large knife). Blend garlic paste, bread, 2 tablespoons vinegar, sugar, cumin, and half of tomatoes in a food processor (I threw it all in a bowl and used a hand blender.) until tomatoes are very finely chopped. Add remaining tomatoes with motor running and, when very finely chopped, gradually add oil in a slow stream, blending until as smooth as possible, about 1 minute.

Force soup through a sieve into a bowl, pressing firmly on solids. Discard solids. (This is the only tricky part, but totally worth it--in the epicurious comments, some people wrote that they skipped this step but without it, you will have mushy soup that separates from the liquid, instead of smooth perfect deliciousness. So just be patient. Pour it in a little at a time and swish it around in the strainer. My trick has been to use the back of a large serving spoon to spread it around, let it drip through a little, then gather it up into a pile of mushy tomato stuff and press on it.)

Transfer to a glass container and chill, covered, until cold, about 3 hours. Season with salt and vinegar before serving.

Serves about 4.