chilled courgette and basil soup, it tastes way better than you think, its pretty good hot to.

This recipe has been on the road with me for years, a real summer work horse in the kitchen. Its amazing for those of you with a garden filled with courgette, as the plants keep on giving and the creativity starts to wain as the season goes on. I always enjoy it as a gazpacho, it's great served with cheese straws, or some whipped seasoned cream.

It also makes a beautiful sauce for fish, split with mint or citrus oil becomes a beautiful dressing for roast vegetables and salads. its made many appearances at the moorcock simply to serve wood roast courgettes, sometimes the addition of goats curd and mint to really sing.

The key to this is to have everything ready to go, as it only takes 3 minutes to cook, and every minute after that the soup will lose colour and the flavour can begin to muddle, no pressure though, its still delicious.

setting up includes ice cubes weighed and out of their trays, the water in the kettle measured, the blender plugged in and a tray or bowl over ice to chill the soup quickly.

the recipe take 500g of ice aswell as a tray or bowl over ice to chill the soup down once cooked. if you don't have a lot of ice to hand probably good to add that to the shopping list.

Ingredients

3kg courgette/zucchini

2 cloves of garlic

1 large bunch of basil (about the size of the living pots you get at the supermarket.)

750g boiling water

500g ice cubes

200g cold pressed oil (olive or rapeseed oil)

1. empty your kettle and refill with 750g of water.

2. pick and wash basil leaves from the stem.

3. peel the zucchini/courgette, keep the skins for the final stage of cooking. cut the skins into 1 cm pieces.

4. cut the zucchini /courgette into quarters length ways, cut out the seeds and discard. then slice the zucchini flesh into thin 2 mm slices so they cook quickly.

5. slice garlic cloves into 2mm slices.

6. heat a large shallow pan which can hold at least 4ltrs of water to a medium/high heat.

7. boil kettle.

8. add the cold pressed oil, after 1 minute add the shaved garlic. stir until starting to turn golden (approx 30 seconds).

9. add the courgette flesh (not the peeled skin) cook stirring constantly without colouring for 1 minute.

10. add boiling water, boil for 1 minute.

11. add courgette skin and cook stirring for 30 seconds.

12. pour contents of pot into a blender and puree until smooth.

13. add ice cubes to the blender and blend until ice is incorporated into soup.

14. pour into a bowl or tray of ice and stir for 2 or 3 minutes until chilled.

15. season with salt to taste and place in the fridge until ready to serve.

seems like a lot of steps, but its all very straight forward and quick, remember to have everything in place before you start.

something which will impress friends with its striking colour and flavour. great on a hot day.

great as a sauce. I have yet to find a place on the menu where this doesn't shine (aside from puddings)