Recipe: Cucumber Buttermilk Soup With Dill (Martha Stewart)

Depending on how many courses and how many people you have to cook for on Christmas Day, preparing the food can be a daunting task. I already have my menu planned - as always, we will be splitting 5-6 courses throughout the day to make it an easier task for me. Usually for lunch, we would serve a soup course. I have a recipe here for cucumber buttermilk soup which only takes 10 minutes to prepare and does not require any cooking at all. And since it is served cold, it will work very well in our hot Malaysian climate.

Christmas Idea #3

Cucumber buttermilk soup with dill

I read somewhere that English cucumbers are much more flavorful, but since I can only get a few types here, I settled for the Japanese cucumber. All you need to do is blend the cucumber with buttermilk. You can either use store-bought buttermilk or make your own using full cream milk and lemon juice (it only takes 5 minutes). The buttermilk gives the soup its creamy texture, but I also added 2 extra tablespoons of yogurt to make it even creamier. Add some diced/sliced cucumber on top for texture. I also topped it with some fresh dill (from our herb garden) since dill and cucumber goes very well together.

This is a light and refreshing soup, and easy to make. You can serve this with some small bites. Christmas lunch sorted... no stress! You can even make this a day in advance and refridgerate it.

Cucumber buttermilk soup
Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 Japanese cucumber, peeled, halved, and seeded, plus thin cucumber rounds, for serving
2 cup buttermilk
Coarse salt and ground pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil, for serving
2 tbsp yogurt (optional)
Dill, to garnish

1. To make buttermilk using milk, simply place 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice in a measuring jug, then pour milk until the 1 cup mark. Leave for 5 minutes for the milk to curdle. Alternatively, you can also whisk whipping cream with an electric whisk until it separates into buttermilk and butter (which you can reserve for other uses).

2. Roughly chop 1 1/2 cucumbers. Dice remaining cucumber and also slice a few pieces of cucumber rounds for garnishing.

3. Place roughly chopped cucumber in a blender with buttermilk and blend until smooth, for about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Divide soup among four bowls and stir in diced cucumber. To serve, top with cucumber rounds, a drizzle of oil, and more pepper, if desired.

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