Chillin' with cool soups

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Raymond Siu's Two-Melon Soup features honeydew and cantaloupe and is served cold.

His answer has been to create a number of dishes that are not on the daily menu (which is a standard list of Hong Kong-style specialties) but are available for catered celebrations or when someone calls head to ask Siu to design them a special meal.

Which explains why a Chinese restaurant came to be serving an amazing light and easy pair of cold soups, Siu's response to the warm weather and the availability of ripe summer fruit.

Last Saturday afternoon, while late lunchers dawdled over lemon chicken and spinach with garlic, Siu demonstrated the soups in the restaurant's airy, open dining room. Though he is not trained as a chef, having worked primarily in the front of the house during his 20-plus years in the business, Siu has watched some of the best, having worked at Alan Wong's, Roy's, Michel's at Colony Surf and the Halekulani hotel.

At the Halekulani, he was able to apprentice in the bake shop and took from that tips he uses in creating special desserts for Pah Ke's. His brother, Barry Siu, is the chef at Pah Ke's. Siu's role is as host and creator of the catering and special-occasion menus.

"This is a Chinese restaurant, and I don't want to do too much Pacific Rim-type food, but when people ask us to do something special, we can have some fun," he said, displaying a box of fragrant, soft-to-the-touch tomatoes from the Shintani Farm in Hau'ula — bright red ones as well as a striped green tomato called Green Zebra. These he uses to create a two-toned chilled soup that is so flavorful and rich-tasting that you would swear it contains cream. But it doesn't.

Siu explains that the flavor intensity comes from slowly roasting the tomatoes before pureeing them, and the richness is from a little olive oil, which emulsifies when the soup is blended. The base of the soup is made-from-scratch chicken stock (chicken bones, a mirepoix of celery, onion and carrot, a little fresh thyme and some peppercorns). You could use vegetable stock, too; he makes one from leeks, onions, fresh thyme, bay leaf, celery and peppercorns.

Raymond Siu of Pah Ke's restaurant in Kane'ohe acts as host and creator of catering and special-occasion menus. His brother is the chef. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

He feels grateful to be in Kane'ohe, close to many small farms where he can buy produce rather than relying solely on wholesale suppliers or frozen products. Many stores are stocking heirloom-type tomatoes grown in Hau'ula or Waimea, and many farmer's markets have home-grown tomatoes now. If the tomatoes are on the sharp-flavored, acidic side, scatter a bit of sugar over them before roasting them, Siu suggests.

Key to making the chilled tomato soup and another Siu specialty, a cold melon soup, is to purée the fruit to the right consistency: Don't juice it, but whir or pulse it just to the point of removing all the lumps, so that there's a little thickness and texture left.

Also important is to give the flavors in the soup a little time to develop. Siu likes to prepare them the day before and store them in airtight containers in a refrigerator. To give the soups a little East-West touch that complements the cooking at Pah Ke's, Siu uses juice squeezed from grated ginger, an ingredient that is healthful and that also awakens the palate to other flavors, he said.

The trick in presenting these soups is to pour equal amounts into the bowl or glass at the same time, working slowly and at opposite ends of the container, so that the soups don't blend but gently meet and retain their integrity.

Two-Colors Hau'ula Tomato Soup

• 4 medium-size red ripe tomatoes
• 1 1/2 pound ripe Green Zebra or yellow tomatoes
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 teaspoons ginger juice*
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups vegetable stock or chicken stock

Cut the tomatoes in half cross-wise and lay them cut side up in a baking pan. Use a separate pan for each color tomato.

Sprinkle minced garlic and salt and pepper to taste over tomatoes. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Roast tomatoes for about 2 hours at 180 to 200 degrees. In the last hour, check every 20 minutes. Tomatoes should be slightly shriveled, soft to the touch and very lightly browned but still juicy. Remove from oven and cool.

Working with one color tomato at a time, puree tomatoes in a blender. Pour in stock and then strain soups, one color at a time, though a medium sieve, rinsing sieve in between. Refrigerate the two colors of soup separately overnight.

To serve: Using two ladles or measuring cups, pour equal amounts of soup simultaneously into chilled martini glasses or bowls.

*To make ginger juice, peel and grate a chunk of ginger, then squeeze ginger to press out juice.

Although this soup calls for melons, you can make it with any soft fruit, Siu said. Watermelon, which is so plentiful right now, would be wonderful, especially if you used both traditional red and the new yellow ones you can find at some markets.

Two Melons Soup

• 1/2 honeydew melon
• 1 whole cantaloupe
• 1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
• Fresh-squeezed orange juice
• Ground cinnamon
• Juice of one lime
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger juice
• Diced melon, mint and red onion for garnish

Peel and seed honeydew melon and pulse in food processor until broken into chunks; add half of the orange zest, a pinch of ground cinnamon, half of the lime juice, half of the ginger juice and enough fresh-squeezed orange juice to give a soupy consistency. Process only until blended.

Chill overnight.

Repeat the same process with the cantaloupe.

To serve: Using 2 ladles or measuring cups, pour equal amounts of soup simultaneously into a large, shallow chilled bowl, forming a yin-yang shape. Garnish with diced melon, mint and onion.