Summer has arrived and on hot days like these we are craving cool, refreshing food. There’s hardly anything better than a cold soup to balance the temperature. The recipe for this one is extremely simple, ideal for beginners and great for when you’re short on time to cook. This delicious soup is filling but light and tasty.
Cucumber and dill are a perfect combination. Cucumbers are known for their high water content, but they are also rich in vitamins and minerals and have a natural cooling effect. We grow dill on the balcony so we always have plenty of fresh stock. This is no comparison in taste to the dry dill from the spice rack! Honestly, we love dill as a grateful herb, not only is it easy to care for, but it also flowers beautifully. You can also eat the flowers and use them in soup – but that’s just on the margin.
We start preparing the cucumber soup by only half peeling the cucumbers. This way you get the beautiful green colour of the peels, but at the same time you don’t have too many hard ingredients. Best of both worlds.
Then we cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise and remove the seeds with a teaspoon.
We put the cucumber pieces in a blender jug together with crumbled feta cheese, yoghurt, roughly chopped capers, fresh dill and lemon juice. We recommend coarsely chopping the dill too, because it has a tendency to wrap itself around the blade in the blender – we speak from unpleasant experience.
The soup is seasoned with mayonnaise and mustard. A few tablespoons of good olive oil provide a fine consistency. The feta cheese is naturally salty and the capers also bring a good spiciness, so you only need a few turns of pepper and don’t need to add salt at this point. If necessary, you can add more seasoning at the end.
Blend the ingredients in a stand mixer or, as we did here, with a hand blender until a creamy texture is achieved. We like this cucumber soup a little chunky, but that is a matter of taste. Of course, you can also blend until the soup is completely creamy and pass it through a sieve at the end, if the soup is to serve as an appetiser for an elegant menu, for example. If the soup is too thick, you can add some cold water as needed. Sparkling water also works well to thin it – this gives the soup an extra refreshing kick.
When that is done, you can season with salt and pepper. We didn’t have to do anything more here – the salt from the feta cheese was quite enough.
Once the cucumber soup has the desired consistency and flavour, put it in the fridge for at least an hour so that it takes on the right temperature and its flavours combine.
The chilled cucumber soup is garnished with sprigs of dill and some good olive oil.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 3-4 people as a light in-between dish):
3 large cucumbers, peeled and seeded
200 g feta cheese, crumbled
250 g yogurt
3 tablespoons capers, drained
3 tablespoons olive oil
A handful of fresh dill, coarsely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
3 tsp medium hot mustard
3 tsp mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Dill sprigs and some good olive oil for garnish
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