[Intro music]
Cold fruit soup are really easy to make
and they rely on beautiful, fresh, ripe ingredients.
Lets do a cantaloup soup. To make a cantaloup soup,
you will need a ripe cantaloup, water,
here I am using Perrier, but you may use any sparkling water,
fresh mint to decorate, some cardamom,
lime juice, a plum or few strawberries to decorate and some sugar.
When selecting your cantaloup at a market,
look for fruits that are very pleasant with strong aromas,
so smell them . They should feel firm.
Stay away from anything that feel soft.
Now, the stem should be dry on the top
and if you play with it, it should crack easily.
Then, the bottom, here which is a core, should be large.
Large ones like this. And those are female melons.
And the smaller ones are male.
Before using your cantaloup, you must wash them thoroughly, with a brush.
So expect to use a little bit of diluted bleached water solution
and brush the skin with it to remove any bacteria.
But other experts agree that when you wash your cantaloup
Under cold water, using a vegetable brush, it will be fine.
So dry the cantaloup. Perfect!
If you want to use the cantaloup as a bowl or serving bowl,
you will have to cut the cantaloup cross wide. That way.
If you do not plan to use the cantaloup as a serving bowl,
then cut the cantaloup through the stem.
Today, lets try a nice presentation. So I will cut it cross wide.
Cut the cantaloup in half. Great.
And remove the seeds with a spoon.
Perfect. Choose which half will be the most stable.
So I am going to cut it little bit here. Ok. More flat here.
Great. And I will use that one as a presentation bowl.
And I am going to make some balls.
So I am using a pomme parisienne appareil.
This is a size for potato cut. And this is pomme parisienne size. However, I have a larger like that.
And I find it too big.
This is why I am using something smaller.
You could buy those at any cookware stores.
So now, I have a nice ring here.
Then I will be digging and remove the flesh of the melon.
You could also use the pomme parisienne appareil, if you want. Just scoop it up.
I prefer to use the spoon. Great.
Don’t go too much to the bottom because otherwise you will do a hole.
And you don’t want that. Great.
Perfect. Cut the other half in wedges.
Ok. Remove the skin.
And cut them in big chunks. May be a little bit deeper here.
Watch your fingers. Ok. Cut them in pieces. Perfect.
So now let’s blend the cantaloup.
So taste your cantaloup to control how much
sweet they are and we wont put all the sugar,
we are going to use the sugar as seasoning.
So we will put some and then add as we go.
So place the pulp into the blender.
Add the cold water, the Perrier.
So I am going to start with one cup. My bowl is graduated,
so I can see where the cup ends.
Perfect. I am going to add half of the lime juice.
Half of the sugar. And blend it.
Good. Now it’s time to put cardamom to season our soup to finish it.
You may use the cardamom powder, I prefer to buy them whole.
Because they do have more flavour, more aromas.
Hmm.. smells wonderful.
But the thing is, you have to grind them.
So this is my spice grinder, which is the coffee grinder.
So when your cardamom reduce into chunks,
they are not really powder yet.
You have to pass it through a sieve in order to remove the strong shells.
And the hard shells if you see.
And you may discard the shells.
So, season your soup with cardamom powder.
About half teaspoon, equal of a teaspoon and process again.
Very nice. Chill the soup for about an hour at least, until totally cold.
Then serve it. See you later.
Its been an hour, my soup is cold, so lets plate it.
So you may taste the soup again.
We haven’t used all the lime yet. We could put the rest. Great!
And, very nice. We didn’t use all the sugar either.
So total, I used for this method, half cup of sugar.
So depending how sweet your melon is,
then you will use less or little bit more. It’s up to you.
Serve the soup.
Add few balls. Great.
And prepare some thin slices from the plum.
I like to keep the skin because it looks beautiful.
You could place them on the top or
make a cut and place them on the side of the glass like a cocktail.
Beautiful! Add a sprig, little bit of fresh mint.
A mint leaf. So this is one idea to present your soup.
Or if you want to use the shell, then serve the soup in the cantaloup shell.
Then garnish with melon balls.
Alright. And few plum slices.
And decorate with a little bit of mint. Clean your plate if any drop of soup.
A great chilled cantaloup soup, spiced with cardamom. Bon appétit!