Friday: Buttermilk soup with smoked trout

Andrea proposed salad and abendbrot, I countered with cold soup, salad, and abendbrot, we agreed.

The idea of buttermilk soup came to me and wouldn't let go, so I picked a recipe out of the Le Menu archive and did that. There were some changes to the recipe: The recipe called for the use of tarragon, which unfortunately we couldn't find at the Coop last night, so I replaced that with fronds from some fennel. I forgot to get sour cream, so we used yogurt. I also replaced the finely diced cucumber with finely diced fennel and added some lemon balm, just because we had it.

Mix 400ml buttermilk with a couple Tbs yogurt and 1Tbs each minced fennel fronds and minced lemon balm. Add 100ml of strong vegetable bouillon, 3-4Tbs of finely diced fennel bulb, salt to taste, a grind of pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. Mix this all well and let it stand in the fridge for half an hour or so. Then serve topped with sliced smoked trout.

My variation was quite good, I'm now looking forward to doing the original version. :-)

We also did a charcuterie/cheese plate and had a green salad.