Cold summer soup Recipes

A cold summer soup as made by Witness contributor ElleZumbido. Photograph: ElleZumbido/GuardianWitness

The blog Green Kitchen Stories and food writer Diana Henry both have great recipes for chilled soups: this is my take. The seeds add extra crunch and a good dose of protein.


Serves 4
⅓ of a fennel bulb, finely chopped
500ml cold water
½ cucumber, roughly chopped
1 large avocado, peeled, stone removed and chopped
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
1 tsp sea salt, or to taste
A large handful dill, chopped
A large handful mint, chopped
Black pepper, to taste
20g toasted pumpkin and hemp seeds (optional)

1 Put the fennel and water in a blender and blitz until there are no pieces of fennel left.

2 Add the cucumber, avocado, lemon juice and zest, oil, salt, and herbs (reserving a few fronds of dill and leaves of mint for the garnish) and blitz again until you have a smooth consistency. Taste and season with the black pepper.

3 Chill for at least 2 hours in the fridge so that it’s very cold. Serve with a drizzle of oil, a sprinkling of salt, some dill and mint and a few seeds.