Cold Soup

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Cold pea soup is a classic spring starter for a sophisticated English dinner. While mint is the time-honored herb of choice, tarragon makes for an appealing change.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A simple version of a Scandinavian fruit soup. This can also be served as a sauce over ice cream, frozen yogurt or pudding.

Elderflowers, with their subtle, honeyed sweetness, are often paired with gooseberries in English cookery. In this particular recipe pink gooseberries are best; the green ones are too tart.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

The classic cold soup, as interpreted by Ouro Branco restaurant, Vila Viçosa, Portugal.

Excellent served cold in summer, the soup also makes a soothing hot starter during the colder months.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A drizzle of chipotle-accented cream boosts the flavors in this refreshing summer soup.

This recipe calls for sweet Gewürztraminer, but any other sweet white wine (excluding dessert wines) should do. This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional sitting time.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

If you can't find fresh fava beans, use edamame (fresh green soybeans in the pod). You'll need to buy two pounds to yield the 3/4 cup for the recipe; do not peel. What to drink: Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Spanish white made from Albariño grapes.

Chef Louis Diat created this famous cold soup (without the peas, which are a nice addition) during his tenure at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York. Diat named the soup after Vichy, the resort town near his boyhood home in France. Hot potato-leek soup had been popular with French chefs for centuries, but Diat-inspired by his own childhood habit of adding milk to hot soup to cool it of-served his version cold. Exactly when vichyssoise first appeared on the hotel menu is unclear, but British food writer Elizabeth David claimed that it debuted in 1917.

Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 1 3/4 hr