Watermelon Gazpacho

Serving tea is one of my favorite things to do for friends.  Yesterday I had several friends over for a tea where this recipe was a surprising hit.  I found this recipe in the July/August 2011 issue of Tea Time magazine and thought I'd try it for a summertime tea.  This cold soup was very refreshing and very easy to make with only 6 ingredients.

Of course, when having a tea, everything must be served in something pretty.  I thought this champagne glass was the perfect vessel for this chilled soup.  I'm not a big fan of watermelon, so having all of the ingredients equally detected meant that I was not overwhelmed with the flavor of mostly watermelon.  

Regular watermelons have black and white seeds and I've always heard that you shouldn't eat the black ones, but the white ones are okay to eat.  For that reason and to save time I bought the seedless variety and was dismayed to discover seeds inside.  I started to think about why God would make a fruit with both good and bad seeds, so I decided to Google watermelon seeds for answers.  Apparently all watermelon seeds are edible and neither will make a watermelon grow inside you!  The white seeds are immature and the black ones are mature.  The seeds found in a seedless watermelon are empty, therefore infertile.  I had my answer, so I wasn't going to worry about trying to remove the seeds from my seedless watermelon!

Having a food processor or good blender is a necessity for ease in making this soup.  The first step in preparing this dish is to puree the watermelon.  As seedless watermelons are smaller, I bought 2 to get the 8 cups of puree I needed for this recipe.  

 

I began by using the pulse feature to make the pieces a bit smaller before turning it on to completely turn the melon to liquid.  I did one melon at a time so that the liquid level wouldn't get to high and leak out under the blade attachment.  I learned that the hard way!  After each melon was pureed, I poured it into a 4-cup measuring cup to make sure I had the perfect amount before transferring it to a large bowl.

Then I coarsely chopped the red bell pepper, red onion, English cucumber, and cilantro and added them to the work bowl with the lime juice.  I began by using the pulse feature and felt as though it needed a little more liquid to get the desired texture, so I added back in about 3/4 cup of the pureed watermelon.  Once all the ingredients were chopped very fine, I added them to the bowl with the watermelon and mixed to combine, covered it and let it chill for a couple of hours until serving.

A small sprig of the cilantro on top and the soup was ready to serve.  It was a surprising treat and such a pretty color also!  Enjoy!

Watermelon Gazpacho

8 cups pureed watermelon (approximately 1/2 large watermelon or 2 seedless watermelons)

1 cup coarsely chopped red bell pepper

1 cup coarsely chopped English cucumber

1 cup coarsely chopped red onion

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Garnish:  fresh cilantro leaves

In the work bowl of a food processor, puree the watermelon in two batches, measuring each batch before transferring to a large bowl.  Add remaining ingredients to food processor with 3/4 cup of watermelon puree; pulse until very finely chopped.  Add to watermelon puree; stir until combined.  Cover and refrigerate for several hours until cold.  Serve cold.  Garnish individual servings with a sprig of fresh cilantro, if desired.