If you’ve spent anytime at the Market Square Farmers’ Market over the past few weekends, you’ve noticed an abundance of summer squash. This simple recipe for Mahasti’s Summer Zucchini & Poblano Soup is a great alternative to preparing zucchini the traditional summer way – standing over a hot grill.

Incorporating poblano peppers adds a slightly sweet and earthy flavorful without overwhelming your taste buds with lots of heat. In case you missed her cooking segment on WBIR last Saturday, we’ve shared Mahasti’s on our blog so grab some local homegrown squash on your next shopping trip and give this recipe a spin in the comfort of your kitchen.

Enjoy!

¼ cup olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled and diced

2 large garlic cloves

1 large poblano pepper, cored, seeded and sliced

5 medium zucchini, ends removed

4 cups water

1 bunch cilantro

2 tsp salt

Peel and dice onion and set aside. Peel garlic, roughly chop and set aside. Rinse pepper, cut down the middle, remove stem and seeds, and cut into 1inch strips and set aside. Remove the ends off all of the zucchini. Cut 4 of the zucchini into 1inch rounds and set aside. Shred the remaining zucchini and set aside separately.

Remove about 1/2 inch off the bottom of the cilantro stems. Place the cilantro in a large bowl of cold water, swish around, and then lift the cilantro out of the water. Repeat the wash process with fresh water until there is no dirt left in the bottom of your bowl when you remove the cilantro. Roughly chop the cilantro and set aside.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until onions are translucent. Add zucchini, pepper and water. Bring the soup to boil, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Add cilantro and salt and blend with an immersion blender until soup is smooth. If using an upright blender, wait for soup to come to room temperature before blending to avoid burning yourself.

After soup is blended add the shredded zucchini. If you used an immersion blender soup will be ready to serve immediately. If you cooled your soup in order to use an upright blender, the soup can be re-heated after you add the shredded zucchini.

Serve with Flour Head Bakery bread and enjoy.

Serves 8- 10

Mahasti’s variation on pozole verde is a great excuse to visit some of Knoxville’s Mexican and Latin American markets for the tomatillos and poblano peppers called for in this recipe. Share your version with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Ingredients

9 cups Water

3 Chicken Breast, bone in with skin

2 Bay Leaves

2 Poblano Peppers

1.5 lb Tomatillo

1 cup Cilantro, leaves and stems

1 cup Onion

3 lg cloves Garlic

¼ cup Oregano

3 – 15.5 oz cans Bush’s Golden Hominy, drained and rinsed

1 Tbl plus 2 tsp Salt

For Serving:

Shredded lettuce

Sliced Radishes

Diced Onion

Cilantro leaves

Thinly Sliced Jalapeno

Sour Cream

Tortilla chips

Rinse chicken breast in cold, clean running water. Place chicken and bay leaves in large pot covered with 9 cups water. In a large pot, bring water to boil. Reduce heat to low and cook chicken for 25 minutes. Remove chicken from pot. Discard bay leaves. When chicken is cool enough to handle discard skin and shred chicken. Reduce heat to low.

While chicken is cooking, rinse, de-stem, and de-seed poblano peppers, set aside. Rinse and de-husk tomatillos, set aside. Wash cilantro, leaving stems attached. Peel and cut onion into medium size pieces. Peel garlic. Pick ¼ cup of oregano leaves. Drain and rinse hominy.

Place poblano peppers, and cilantro in the jar of your blender. Remove 1 cup of cooking liquid from the pot of chicken and add to the blender. Blend the peppers until smooth. Pour most of the blended pepper mixture into a large bowl, leaving about 1 cups worth behind in blender.  Add tomatillos, onions, garlic and oregano to the blender and blend until smooth. Pour tomatillo mixture into poblano mixture.

When Chicken has been removed from pot – add tomatillo-pepper mixture to pot. Add shredded chicken, hominy and salt. Increase heat to medium, stirring occasionally bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer soup for 15 – 20 minutes.

Serve hot with Sides of shredded lettuce, sliced radishes, diced onion, cilantro leaves, jalapeno, sour cream and tortilla chips.

Serves 10 – 12

¡Esperamos que lo disfruten!