In Season: summer barbecue soups

Throw some smoked chicken in the blender with a handful of fresh tarragon, a dash of olive oil, a chunk of cucumber and a glug of pineapple juice. Then just give it a good blitz in the blender until it’s a soup consistency.

Serve with a good dollop of sour cream and some blanched sweetcorn and some crispy pancakes with sliced cucumber on the side. It’s a delicious, smoky, sweet and meaty soup. If you fancy, you can also add some leek or garlic to the soup and serve with some crushed brazil nuts sprinkled on top.

2. Smoked fish

Take a fillet of smoked fish – I would suggest trout, mackerel, kippers or even a tin of tuna. Blend it with a glug of apple juice, a dollop of natural yogurt, a dash of olive oil and lemon juice and a few chunks of roughly chopped watermelon. Then put the soup through a sieve to remove any fish bones. Add a splash of vinegar if it’s too sweet.

Serve with flaked almonds or spring onions on top and some crispy French bread and butter. And if you want to be really decadent, throw in some rollmops or caviar. A deliciously tangy and sweet smoky soup.

3. Classic gazpacho

Take a pimento, some fresh plum tomatoes, an onion, a couple of garlic cloves, ½ cucumber, a splash of olive oil, a splash of vinegar, some freshly chopped chives, and a splash of water (depending on how much you need) and blend to a soup. Add a dessertspoonful of mayonnaise or piccalilli to help blend it all together. Pass it through a sieve then add some fennel seeds if you like or even some Spanish kidney beans or butter beans. Serve with some grated hard cheese on the top (like manchego), crushed walnuts and walnut oil.

On the side you could have it with clotted cream sprinkled with salt and pepper and some dried bread. Or some of that Welsh rarebit I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It’s also delicious with some little pieces of dried figs fried in olive oil and some walnuts added at the last minute.

4. Sweet fruit soup

This is the easiest soup to make. Take a punnet of strawberries, a punnet of raspberries, a banana, two or three crushed cardamom seeds (no more than that as they are strong), 4oz cottage cheese, half a pint of orange juice, a tin of peaches and give them a good blend. If it’s too thick you might need to add more orange juice. Pass it through a sieve then add some sultanas that have been fried in olive oil and some finely sliced basil.  Add some natural yogurt to thicken if you like.

Serve with sugared crumpets (crumpets sprinkled with icing sugar, lemon juice, dried sage and grilled) sweet brioche. It’s a lovely balance of sweet and sour.

Soup is a very versatile dish but did you know that in America over 10 billions bowls of soup are eaten every year?

Here are 10 more fascinating facts that you might not know about soup.

1 The word soup comes from the Latin word ‘suppa’, meaning bread soaked in broth.

2Andy Warhol claimed to have eaten soup every day for 20 years.

3 The oldest known soup dates back to 6,000BC and was made from hippopotamus and other animal bones.

4 Powdered soups are used by astronauts as a main source of food because they are so light-weight.

5 The main ingredient in bird nest soup is birds nests made from the congealed spit of Swifts.

6 Clear broth or consomme is believed to have been created in the 1700s after the French King asked his chefs to create a soup that would allow him to see his own reflection.

7 Frank Sinatra always asked for chicken and rice soup in his dressing rooms before he went on stage. He said it always cleared his mind and settled his stomach.

8 In Japan and other countries, clear soup is often eaten for breakfast.

9 Ladies in the French Court of Louis XI reportedly mainly ate soup for meals because they feared chewing would cause wrinkles.

10 According to etiquette experts, since we consume soup with a spoon instead of sipping it from a bowl, we ‘eat’ it rather than ‘drink’ it.