Name: Cool Minted Sweet Onion Soup
Yield: Serves 6 as a first course
Ingredients: 1 large mild onion (1 to 1¼ pounds); 2 pickling type (“kirby”) cucumbers; 1 garlic clove, sliced; 3 tablespoons mild light oil, such as grapeseed; ¼ teaspoon fine-ground white pepper; 2 to 3 tablespoons champagne vinegar or rice vinegar; ½ cup packed flat-leaf parsley leaves; ¾ to 1 cup packed mint leaves (preferably peppermint); 1 large white roll or a few slices of white bread (about 3 ounces); 1 small Iceberg lettuce (1 pound); 3 tablespoons olive oil, or more to taste; Fine chiffonade of mint for garnish; ½ tablespoon kosher salt

Preparation info

Serves
6
as a first course

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini

By Elizabeth Schneider

Published 2001

About

Prior to the arrival of tomatoes, bell peppers, and chillis from the New World, cold Spanish soups called gazpachos were not red. The recipe here is typical in its raw vegetables, olive oil, and bread thickening, but atypical in its major ingredients: sweet/mild onion and Iceberg lettuce, which provide both body and liquid. If you ask tasters to identify the ingredients, you may be as surprised by the answers as I was. The components blend so subtly that few will recognize what makes up the