Charred zucchini soup may lack in looks, but scores in flavor
If you are firing up the grill any time soon — and we know you are — toss a few zucchini on at the end and you'll have the main ingredient for a fine, summer soup.
Charred Zucchini soup with yogurt and pine nuts combines charred zucchini with caramelized onions, Arborio rice, lemon juice and mint for a richly flavored soup that tastes like a vacation in Greece.
Anna Thomas, author of “Love Soup,” suggests you saute the onions in a little bit of olive oil for 30 minutes until they are dark brown. Then, she suggests you continue sauteing the onions for at least another 10 minutes, maybe even longer. This is harder to do than you might imagine. I hovered over the frying pan certain that I was going to destroy the onions and have to start all over again.
But she was absolutely right. The more they cook, the more they caramelize. The more they caramelize, the more flavorful they become. (By the way, caramelized onions with mayo and sour cream make a fabulous dip, reminiscent of the old favorite “French Onion Dip” — only much better!)
The combination of charred zucchini and heavily browned onions gives this soup a depth of flavor that you might not expect. And the pop of lemon juice along with the handful of mint help brighten the taste of the soup.
This recipe also calls for putting a mound of Greek yogurt in the bottom of the bowl and topping it off with the soup. Every time I tried this, it resulted in curdled yogurt, which might taste fine but is definitely not acceptable. Instead, I let the soup cool a bit and put a dollop of the yogurt on top and sprinkled the pine nuts on top of that. It worked perfectly. If you want, you could also dribble a little green olive oil on top, as well.
In either case — curdled or not — this is not a pretty soup. In other words, don't expect to serve it to your boss's wife or your snobby friend from college. There's just no way cooked zucchini and caramelized onions are going to look attractive. But just because it doesn't wow in the appearance category, doesn't mean it's not a winner.
• M. Eileen Brown is the Daily Herald's director of strategic marketing and innovation and an incurable soup-a-holic. She specializes in vegetarian soups and blogs at soupalooza.com.