Chilled melon and jalapeño soup

Not the best picture, but very good soup!

A couple of Cape Town summers ago, Vince and I were invited to lunch at Ilse Nieman's house in Tamboerskloof, a beautiful, sheltered and heat-trapping neighbourhood on a steep slope against Signal Hill above what is known as the City Bowl. It is a bowl of dry heat.

It was a memorbaly good meal, and we ate our first course standing and lounging in the swimming pool,  which was remarkably cold. And that first course was a watermelon soup, pale pink, sweet, and cold with an edge of peppery heat.  So that was my inspiration for this version, sucked up on a recent hot, humid Brooklyn summer's day.

The success of the soup rather depends on how good the melon is, and there is never any way of telling until you have cut it open.

I used an entire Hami melon, peeled it, chunked it. About 5-6 cups.
1 jalapeño pepper, seeds removed, unless you are feeling frisky
1/4 tsp of salt
Juice of a lime (or more, to taste)
15 mint leaves

That's it. Whizz it all around in a blender until very, very smooth, and chill until deeply cold. Stir before serving as the juice settles. I keep my cold soups in a pretty jug for easy pouring.

There is no reason why this could not be frozen and scratched with a fork as it freezes into a granita, or poured into lollypop moulds for sorbert with a kick.