Chilled Marcona Almond & Poblano Chile Soup with Sherry
Crab Salad Pillar with Avocado
Diced Watermelon, Feta and Mint
Borage Blossom Garnish
The 5 Star Makeover Cooking Group hosted by Natasha the 5 Star Foodie & Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! is an outstanding monthly event for sharing ideas and creating gourmet makeovers of selected classic dishes or flavor combinations. June’s summery theme is CHILLED SOUPS.
The chilled almond & chile soup has been a favorite here for over a decade – a STAR of a cold soup that’s hot, smoky, and nutty. If fact, I entered it in a contest at the Los Angeles County Fair years ago, and it won second place. I’ve updated the soup recipe, now using sweet Spanish Marcona almonds and dry Spanish sherry. The basic soup can be simply garnished with bay shrimp or a drizzle of Mexican crema and a few cilantro leaves. Or for entertaining, go all out and build the crab pillar, your guests will be delighted.
☆ Marcona Almond & Poblano Chile Chilled Soup Recipe ☆
Char the skins of about a pound of poblano (or Hatch) chiles over an open flame. Place peppers in a large bowl and cover with a towel. Once cool, remove the skin, seeds, and membranes. Rough chop the peppers.
Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan, add 3 crushed garlic cloves, then add the chopped peppers. Sauté for about 5 minutes. Let cool completely.
Meanwhile, puree 4 oz. roasted/salted Marcona almonds with 1 c.chicken stock in a blender. (A food processor does not work as well, as the almonds need to be completely pureed). Add peppers and one more cup of chicken stock. Puree until smooth, adding more stock if necessary to get the perfect soup consistency. Add salt to taste and finish with 2 T. dry Spanish sherry. Chill.
☆ Crab Salad, Avocado with Lime, Watermelon with Feta & Mint ☆
Crab Salad
Season mayonnaise with a small amount of Dijon mustard, a splash each of Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces, salt and pepper. Mix in finely chopped chives, fine dice red pepper, and chopped cilantro. Fold crab meat into the mayonnaise mixture and refrigerate until use.
Avocado with Lime
Mash a ripe avocado with the back of a fork, leaving it a bit chunky. Add a squeeze of lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to assemble.
Watermelon with Feta and Mint
Cut watermelon into a small dice. Toss gently with crumbled feta, finely chopped mint, and a bit of salt. Refrigerate until use. (Prep the avocado and watermelon at the last possible minute to ensure freshness).
☆ Assembly ☆
Oil the inside of a ring mold. Place the mold in a shallow bowl. Put a layer of the watermelon mixture in the bottom of the mold, pressing down with the back of a spoon. Then layer the crab salad, and avocado, pressing down on each layer. Finally spoon watermelon on the top of the avocado. Pour chilled soup around the mold. Slowly lift the mold up.
☆ Brother Bill’s Sense of Humor ☆
I must acknowledge my brother Bill for his input on this dish. Depending on the heat of the peppers, the chilled soup can be quite spicy. It was Bill’s terrific idea to add extra watermelon to the base of the ring mold, and to add more watermelon to the soup to create a cool balance to the heat. I’m especially fond of the little cubes of watermelon floating in the soup. Merci mon frère!
It was also his idea to introduce the crab claw…
☆ Garnish ☆
Place a few whole Marcona almonds and petite mint leaves on top of the watermelon. Finish with a sprinkling of chopped mint, finely crumbled feta, and borage blossoms. Make sure all the components of the dish are well chilled for ultimate summer enjoyment!
☆ Borage ☆
Like bright stars falling from the summer sky…with it’s electric blue color and a faintly sweet flavor with hints of cucumber, borage makes the presentation pop!
☆ 5 Star Makeover Cooking Group ☆
Inspired ideas for summer entertaining can be found in the round-up of all the fabulous chilled soups now posted here.
☆ 2012 Makeover Challenges ☆
January – MEATBALLS A Quinoa Meatball Landscape
February – BEETS Resplendent Baby Golden Beet Salad
March – JUNK FOOD Pairing 2 Fresh Fish with Corn Nuts?
April & May – RESTAURANT WARS Welcome to Ciao Fiore!
☆ Taste With The Eyes is 5 Years Old this Month! ☆
I’m thrilled to be asking 5 extraordinary blogger friends to help me celebrate this milestone anniversary with Guest Posts on Taste With The Eyes. Never realizing back then all the friends I would make, how much I would learn, and the fun to be had – I’m even more excited about this hobby today than the day I started. The theme for the anniversary is 5 Fabulous Blogger Friends in Honor of 5 Years of Blogging. Please help me welcome them in the coming weeks as they share their own unique and magical art of cuisine.
I hope Taste With The Eyes continues to inspire you just as reading your blogs and hearing your comments inspires me. I’m grateful for the knowledge, creativity, and joy this little hobby has brought into my life. It has turned into quite a passion over the past five years!
☆ Giveaway (thru JULY 6) – My Thank You Gift ☆
Monet’s Table: The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet has been a favorite of mine for many years, as it marries cooking and art, flavor and color, taste and beauty. It is authored by Claire Joyes, the wife of Madame Monet’s great-grandson. I’m especially enamored with the photographs of Monet’s dining table at Giverny. I would like to GIVEAWAY a copy of Monet’s Table, shipped from amazon.com, as a token of my appreciation for your friendship and camaraderie over the past five years.
Please come help me celebrate the anniversary of Taste With the Eyes! Leave a comment on the previous post HERE now through July 6th and you’ll be entered to win.
☆☆☆☆☆
i love marcona almonds (and crab and avocado and watermelon and… you get the idea), so i’m totally intrigued by this soup! kicked up with the poblanos, this must be fantastic 🙂
As always, a visual treat and seemingly full of interesting flavors. I think the addition of watermelon was a good call by Bill. I imagine if you entered the updated version at the County Fair, you’d go home with first place.
Love it when the ring mold makes an appearance. Intricate flavor profile. I too am a big fan of pillars in soups. I’m sure you saw already. Such an awesome way of adding both complexity and visual appeal to the soup.
Bravo!
This dish is stunning in every way – visually and naturally, the flavors you combined are fabulous. Love the borage flowers too. You are a real ARTISTE!
This one floored me, Lori! So, so breathtaking, and I love the flavors you’ve layered together. Especially the crab salad and the use of watermelon here.
I have been following your blog for a few years now and I love the inspiration you bring to your dishes along with a unique creativity. Wonderful crab and avocado salad!
A real beauty to eat with pleasure!
The Almond & Poblano Chile Chilled Soup sound absolutely magnificent. And the presentation is a work of art. So many well married flavors, wow!
Gorgeous! When you lift the ring mold, I was really excited. Love looking at step by step to see how you create this perfect dish. And I love your brother’s sense of humor. LOL!! It will take half of my day to create this beauty but you cook it so naturally, elegantly, and easily!
Wow, what an incredibly unique soup with poblanos and marcona almonds, and all the layers in the garnish are just fabulous! I seriously need to try this! 5 Stars!!!
Pretty sure this soup should take 1st place ALWAYS-wow!
This looks light and refreshing. Congratulations on making the foodbuzz Top 9!
Love the soup I’m not surprised it has taken a place of honor in the contest. Beautifull photos
Don’t put me on the list for the book since I have it and love it.
Do put me down for loving this soup. It seems we both thought of borage (don’t you love it?) and almonds when we did our cold soups. Yours is amazing and looks like a work of art with that tower of great flavors. Fabulous to make the soup with the chilies. Must give this a try too.. so many great soups in the challenge!!
Wow, Lori- mission accomplished: I’m truly inspired! I love the idea of the almond base, pureed with the roasted chiles… And presentation is outa this world… I need to go out and grab some borage blossoms for our meal tonight 🙂
Beautiful pictures…
Thanks for posting. Blessings!
Gorgeous soup! Congrats on the top 9!
This soup will be the perfect addition to a gourmet dinner I am hosting. Thank you for what looks to be the highlight of the meal!
THIS dish…. oh MY…. too pretty to eat, almost! lol This would be SO lovely served at a women’s event.
Stunning. I think I would be just as happy with it without the crab but the option is splendid. I love that you won second place. Should have been first.
Absolutely stunning visually and the recipe looks like it’s wonderful! Congratulations on reaching the Foodbuzz Top 9! Nicely executed.
Congratulations on making the foodbuzz top 9 today with your wonderful soup and salad dish, it looks terrific!
Wow, just stunning, LL! The photo from above with the garnish is beautiful! You create such lovely food…thanks for inspiring me each time I stop by~
As serene, as beautiful and as colorful as a Monet. This looks delightful. Thanks for sharing.
This recipe is truly extraordinary. It took my breath away! So glad I spotted your site on foodbuzz.
This puts the art in the cullinary arts.
This is my kind of soup! Wow! Absolutely stunning!
This almost looks like art !! Awesome
Wow! Very beautiful! Very well constructed soup. Great photos, as always. 🙂
i am a sculptor…in stone. This soup is a work of art! I love the visual impact and the ingredients sound wonderful. Definitely making this one!
What a stunning dish! I love the crab salad and avocado! A great addition to the soup 🙂
I always ogle at the things you make for the Makeover Challenges, they’re always so beautiful and this soup was no exception. I just adore the way you layer the ingredients and flavors and coordinate their colors so that your dish pops out of the screen effortlessly! Oh, and your brother’s input was brilliant too, those watermelon cubes are perfect in the soup 🙂
I love your presentation and table setting! So beautiful and elegant. That crab pillar – oh man – sounds so good. The soup alone sounds interesting too and easy enough for me to follow!
First off, Happy 5th Anniversary, wishing you many more delightful years ahead! And as for this stunning soup…just gorgeous! And such a beautiful array of flavors, just delicious!
Of all the soups, this is just my favorite even though I don’t eat seafood. As we say in Cuban spanish, “te lo comiste con esto aqui” — loose translation: you outdid yourself. Literal: You ate this one up! 😉 Fantastic and lovely job, Lori Lynn. Just lovely.
Hi Lori-Lynn, did you use raw or dried almonds ?
Thank you for answering
Bacchis
Hi – they are roasted/salted marcona almonds.
LL
Where can I please get the amounts for ingredients for the stack?
HI Sylvia – there is no set amount for the ingredients, simply eyeball it from the images.
Thanks for your interest in this recipe.
LL