White Gazpacho! I Eat This All the Time…Like Every 20 Years

A very, very long time ago, I had a white gazpacho. It was ice cold, very tasty, and super refreshing. It was similar to a classic gazpacho, but with no tomato and peppers. It was so unusually delicious that it really made an impression.

It had a cucumber base, was garnished with almonds and grapes, and was so good, I told myself to get the recipe and put it into regular summer rotation. That was probably 20 years ago, and I haven’t had it since. Totally spaced. 

Anyway, last week I came across this on Grubstreet, and it all came back to me. I knew I must try this soup! I’ve adapted the Dovetail’s versionslightly, but it’s one of those very personal recipes that you’ll want to adjust to your tastes.

Tweaking the amounts of salt, vinegar, and sweetness from the grapes will easily alter the final product, so experimentation is a must! The same goes for the texture. Add a bit more or less water depending on your dream viscosity.

The ice cube trick is optional, but really does keep the soup nicely chilled. The temperature is so critical here – you can’t serve this too cold. By the way, the dill oil I drip on the top was nothing more than a few tablespoons of vegetable oil mashed with some fresh dill with a mortar and pestle.

So, the next time you’re looking for a cool first course for that next great garden party, I hope you give this a try. You’ll love it so much, I’m sure you’ll make it all the time! ;) Enjoy!

Ingredients for 6 small servings:

1 tbsp olive oil 

1 cup whites part of leeks, washed, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

2 English cucumbers, peeled

8-10 green grapes

1/4 cup slivered almonds

1 tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup crème fraiche, sour cream or plain yogurt

1 generous cup fresh bread cubes

2 tbsp sherry vinegar, or to taste

1 tsp salt, plus more to taste

cayenne to taste

1 1/2 cups cold water, more if needed

dill oil and/or fresh dill leaves

View the complete recipe

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What we EAT during Chinese New Year

Every year throughout the 15 days of Chinese Lunar New Year(CNY) celebration we would have some house visiting and food gatherings among relatives and friends. As usual from reunion dinner onwards everyday there is at least 1 food gathering where we get to feast different kinds of CNY goodies or special new year dishes.

This post shows how our family feast during the 1st 7 days of Chinese New Year.

EARLY REUNION DINNER @ JING LONG SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

Again this year our reunion dinner with in-laws is at their favourite Jing Long Seafood Restaurant (last year dinner HERE) located at Bedok North Ave 2. But this year their service was rather bad due to poor planning of dine-in timing and lack of serving staffs.

Deep-fried Soon Hock with Garlic - Crispy outer layer with tender and juicy meat inside.

Deep-fried Prawns with Special Sauce - Love these prawns that soak in tom yum taste gravy together with dong fen(冬粉) in it. The dong fen taste so delicious while soaking up the gravy.

Prosperity Seafood Noodles - This braised  Longevity Noodles with seafood is something new to me and I would want to replicate this yummy dish at home. For the sweet version of this longevity noodles you can refer HERE.

OUR REUNION DINNER AT HOME

This year I have prepared two simple dishes for our reunion dinner which is this Stir-fry Fu Gui Cai and Stuffed Mushrooms with Black Moss. (please refer to recipe HERE)

Second dish is this traditional Hakka Glutinous Rice Wine Chicken(黄酒鸡) where homemade rice wine is used to simmer the chicken pieces with ginger and perhaps some red dates for Chinese New Year auspicious colour. (please refer to recipe HERE)

CHINESE NEW DAY 1 - LUNCH

Braised Sea Cucumber with Mushrooms, Fish Maw, Abalone, Pork Tendons(猪脚筋), Dried Scallop(干贝), Black Moss and etc.

Love this Stir-fry Broccoli with Scallop. Very quick and simple homecook veggies.

One of the traditional Hakka dish - Braised Mushroom with dried oyster, roast pork and black moss.

CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY 2 - DINNER

Since the coffee shop below mums place is not opening during Day 2 of Chinese New Year, she has to source for another catering to provide the food for evening gatherings. Here are the food that she ordered from "Feng Wei Seafood(Block 5 Tanjong Pagar Plaza)".

Braised Tofu with Mushrooms - Accordingly to mum the stall owner told her that they made this tofu themselves instead of store bought. The tofu is very silky soft and fragrance which blends well with the stewed mushrooms and sauce.

CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY 6 - UNCLE ALANS HOUSE

For a chance Aunty Grace did not order her Chinese New Year Buffet from the usual cater company this year. Instead she tried another food catering which is smaller in scale and provide quality style of homecook food buffet.

We all love this Braised Pork Belly(Kong Ba Bao - 扣肉包) which is well-season. Each piece of the pork belly is so soft and tender and it goes very well with the white steamed bun. Cant resists to eat more but have to control :)

This round we have Pork Ribs Curry instead of the usual Chicken Curry. Taste wise still acceptable but there is still room for improvement on their curry spices.

Yummy homemade Cheng Teng(清汤) which is not too sweet and yet taste great with generous amount of ingredients such as dried longan, gingko nuts, barley and etc.

CHINESE NEW YEAR DAY 7 - UNCLE LIANGs HOUSE

Uncle Liang is my mums 2nd brother who is also known as "2nd Uncle" to me. Every years during Chinese New Year he would invited everyone to his house for lunch where Aunty Irene (aunty-in-laws) would whipped up spread of delicious homecook food for us.

Aunty Irene is very thoughtful and she would always prepared some of these finger food for kids(we always have around 10 young cousin).

This "Braised Sea Cucumber" together with lot of other ingredients such as clam, mushroom, black moss, roast pork and etc is one of Aunty Irene signature dish. Everyone I would look forward to eat this dish and I have tried to replicate once using her recipe too. If you are interested to read up more please refer to the link HERE.

Aunty Irenes fried chicken wings is also another of her signature dish. Her chicken wings is very flavorsome and remains crispy even if it is cold. Everyone loves this and we can have 4 to 5 in one go.

Very colourful homemade YuSheng (鱼生) prepared by my 2nd Aunty-in-laws and everyone praised for its taste and freshness.

My cute and forever young mum, aunty and aunty-in-laws: (Left from back: Small Aunty, Mum, 2nd Aunty-in-laws and 6th Aunty-in-laws; Left from front: 3rd Aunty-in-laws; Small Aunty-in-laws and Big Aunty-in-laws)

My uncles and uncle-in-law: (Left from back: Big Uncle, 6th Uncle, Uncle-in-laws; Left from Front: 2nd Uncle and Small Uncle)

Although different people has different view of Chinese New Year, some might look forward while others might being "running" away from this festive season. But no matter which category you belong to, my advise it family bonding is always something heartwarming and its good to gather everyone together and enjoy even a simple homecook meal. For more photos of our Chinese New Year celebration, you can check it out at Cuisine Paradise Facebook page "Usher Into the Year of Dragon" album HERE.

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