ArtSpace Someone’s in the Kitchen -Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Lemongrass Smoked Crab

The next course in my ArtSpace Dinner was a Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Lemongrass Smoked Crab. Originally I wanted to split King Crab Legs and grill them with a  lemongrass butter but this method and product was cost prohibitive. I ended up using a mixture of mainly Lump Crabmeat and supplemented with Claw meat from the Crab as well. To get the lemongrass flavor I split fresh lemongrass down the middle and dehydrated it. I used the dehydrated lemongrass to cold smoke the crab meat since I did not want it to cook.

Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup,Cucumber, Pickled Yellow Tomatoes, Lemongrass Smoked Crab & Micro Cilantro

The soup is something I have done in the past just not the technique I was attempting to pull off this time. I basically made a gazpacho type dish but I minimized the amount of cucumber I used. The soup was fairly chunky even after passing thru the food processor. I took about a 1/3 of the soup and finely strained it and added to an ISI whip canister. I charged the ISI with two N2O charges and chilled it.

For plating, I had this idea in my head to use a “rocks” glass but one that tapered as it went up. Luckily here in Shreveport we have a Libbey Glass Manufacturing facility as well as a store on site. I found the glasses I needed and bought as many as I could.

At the bottom of the glass we placed a generous portion of the crab mixture, topped with finely diced cucumber and pickled yellow tomatoes. On top of this mixture was ladled the non-strained chilled yellow tomato soup about 1/3 of the way up the glass. After that it was topped with the “foamed” Yellow Tomato soup from the ISI canister. The soup was then garnished with a few sprigs of micro-cilantro. This is a dish that I have done time and time again and feel pretty confident about the flavors. It is bold yet refreshing and has a lightness about it without taking away from the basic flavors.

RECIPE : Yellow Tomato Gazpacho