Free The Sugar Mill Caribbean Cookbook by Jinx Morgan Page A

raspberry purée on top. Chilled soups are one way we like to take advantage of our bounty of tropical fruits.
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3
cups chopped ripe mango flesh
 
Juice of 1 lemon
¼
cup dry sherry
¼
cup dry white wine
1
pinch ground cloves
½
teaspoon ground ginger
½
teaspoon ground cinnamon
1
cup heavy cream
Raspberry Purée
1
cup fresh or frozen raspberries
2
tablespoons rum
    Put the chopped mango and lemon juice into a saucepan. Add the sherry and white wine, and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer until the fruit is soft. Let the mixture cool.
    Pour the cooked fruit and liquid into a blender. Add the spices, and blend at low speed until the mixture is smooth. (You may have to do this in two batches.) Transfer the purée to a bowl, and stir in the heavy cream. Chill the soup well.
    Purée the raspberries and rum in a blender, and strain the purée to remove the seeds.
    When you are ready to serve, spoon the soup into chilled bowls. Put the raspberry purée into a pastry bag with a small round tip, or into a plastic bottle with a small tip (such as a bottle used for ketchup or mustard). Squeeze concentric circles of purée on top of the soup. With a knife, cut back and forth across the circles to create a spider-web effect.
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    Makes 4 servings

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    Mango Madness
    When the mango trees in Tortola are heavy with ripening fruit, there's a little madness in the summer air. Each year the first taste of this sensual fruit seems even better than memory recalls.
    But eating a mango can be messy. One of our most treasured mango memories is of the summer afternoon a neighbor invited us for a swim in her pool. She passed around champagne in silver goblets and mangoes fresh from her trees. We paddled around the pool, mango juice dripping from our chins, and thought that we had, indeed, found paradise.
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Peanut Pumpkin Soup
    With their green skins and rather lumpy complexions, Caribbean pumpkins don't make world-class jack-o'-lanterns, but they do make great soup. Sometimes we have our own Caribbean pumpkin patch growing right at the hotel, and guests are often curious to know the name of the peculiar-looking green fruit growing on the vines. When we tell them it's pumpkin, they sometimes give us one of those incredulous looks that implies we may have been in the tropical sun too long.
    The flesh from common orange pumpkins, either fresh or canned, works just fine in this recipe.
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¼
cup butter
4
cups cooked and puréed pumpkin
2
cups cooked and puréed sweet potatoes
1
cup smooth peanut butter
6
cups chicken broth
 
Salt and pepper to taste
Garnishes
Sour cream
Snipped chives
Chopped peanuts
    Heat the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter. Add the broth, and season with salt and pepper. Stir until the soup is smooth. Reduce the heat, and simmer the soup for 20 minutes.

    Before serving, garnish the soup with sour cream, chopped peanuts, and chives.

Curried Zucchini Soup
    A
soupçon
of Caribbean curry enhances this soup, which is equally good served hot or cold.
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5
tablespoons butter
2
onions, coarsely chopped
3
tablespoons curry powder
6
cups chicken broth
2
potatoes, peeled and cubed
Salt and pepper to taste
6
small zucchini (about 1 pound)
1½
cups heavy cream
Garnish
Snipped fresh chives
    Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy pot. Add the onions and curry powder, and sauté the onions until they are soft, about 15 minutes. Add thebroth and potatoes, and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer the mixture, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
    Season the soup with salt and pepper. Slice five of the zucchini, add them to the soup pot, and simmer the soup 10 minutes more. Purée the soup in batches in a food processor or blender. While the machine is running, add the cream in a steady stream. Return the soup to the pot, and heat it gently (do not let it boil).
    Cut the remaining zucchini into