Author Notes: The recipe hails from my cookbook, The Cool Mountain Cookbook, which is a compilation of home-tested recipes from fabulous ski resorts around the country. This particular recipe is adapted from the Topnotch Resort in Stowe, VT. Although it calls for cantaloupe, a really ripe honeydew melon would make a lovely substitution. A swirl of yogurt thinned with a little milk on top would be a nice, creamy garnish. – Chef Gwen —Chef Gwen
Food52 Review: Cantaloupe soup is often overly sweet and one-dimensional. Not so with Chef_Gwen’s Chilled Cantaloupe Soup. She adds orange, lemon and lime juice to the fruit, giving it a healthy blast of acidity, and then spices the soup with cinnamon and salt. When you taste it, you first get the sweet fruit, which seems impossibly bright and refreshing, and this is followed by waves of cinnamon. The soup, which takes 5 minutes to prepare, separates as it sits, so give it a stir before serving and get it ice, ice cold. And don’t forget the mint and yogurt swirls, which aren’t merely decorative — the yogurt enriches the soup and the mint adds a note of freshness. – A&M —The Editors
Serves: 6
Ingredients
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6
cups chopped cantaloupe, about 1 (4 pound) melon
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1 1/2
cups orange juice
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1/4
cup fresh lemon juice
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1/4
cup fresh lime juice
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2
tablespoons honey
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1/4
teaspoon ground cinnamon
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1/4
teaspoon salt
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1
sprig fresh mint
Directions
- Place all ingredients, except for the mint, in a large bowl and stir.
- Place half the mixture in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour soup into a pitcher, and repeat with remaining mixture.
- Taste and whisk in more cinnamon, honey or even lemon juice if desired. It should taste sweet and tart, with only a hint of cinnamon. Chill the soup until ready to serve.
- Remove the mint leaves from the stem (discard) and stack the leaves on top of each other. Roll lengthwise into a tight “cigar.” Slice crosswise into thin strips.
- Pour the chilled soup into six soup bowls. Garnish each with a sprinkle of shredded mint and serve.
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Simple ingredients, and a very simple method, leave no excuses not to try this at home.
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We did a lot of juicing that day. Luckily, Amanda is very handy with a reamer.
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This soup is so easy, that after the cantaloupe is cut and measured, the work is basically done.
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Toss the melon, juices, honey and cinnamon together…
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And just blend it all!
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The soup looks incredibly smooth and creamy.
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And Amanda likes to live dangerously by taking the top off the blender while it's going. Admittedly, it looked cool, but we do not reccomend trying this at home — blender disasters are a…
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We poured it right into a pitcher to chill, so that serving would be as simple as possible.
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Merrill employs a great technique for chiffonading mint — just use scissors!
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We topped it with the reccomended yogurt, thinned with milk, and it was a big hit, even with Amanda's 3-year-olds.
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