Summer's Liquid Gold - Gazpacho

Gazpacho is and always has been one my favorite dishes of summer. When I was growing up, my mom and I would buy cans upon cans of Pepperidge Farm's gazpacho, chop up a bevy of fresh vegetables and keep a big jug of the fresh summer soup in the fridge. Every time I opened the door to our refrigerator, I was tempted with its promise of cool refreshing flavor and crunchy vegetables.

Today I make my own gazpacho base and am always interested in new ideas for getting the gazpacho started. While flipping through Heart of the Artichoke by David Tanis, I came upon a genius idea I wish I had come up with first. Tanis grates fresh tomatoes on a box grater and strains the seeds out of the tomato puree for pure, unadulterated fresh tomato gazpacho starter. What you do after that is really up to you. I used a microplane to grate garlic and onion into the base and then seasoned with salt and pepper. Chop up whatever fresh vegetables you have on hand and call it a day.

I garnished this bowl with chopped jalapeno and olive oil. Check back on Thursday for directions on how to take the garnish up a notch with a vegetable salad encased in a ring of avocado.



Gazpacho
Method adapted from David Tanis
Serves 6

4 lbs fresh tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1/2 of a small onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
1/2 of a jalapeno for garnish

Rinse tomatoes and cut in half horizontally. Grate the tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater until you are left with just the skin of the tomato. Toss the skin. Strain the tomato pulp through a coarse-mesh strainer to catch the seeds and any large pieces of pulp. Peel the garlic cloves and grate on a microplane directly into the tomato starter. Do the same with the onion. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Divide among six bowls and garnish with chopped jalapeno and a drizzle of olive oil.

French Onion Soup

It is another drizzly day in New York. I now know what they mean by, ‘April showers before May Flowers’. Growing up in Los Angeles, I never fully understood the meaning of this phrase. Sure, it rained in April, but not that much and certainly no more than in February or March. Note to self, any phrase about weather is probably not referring to Southern California, where I am now convinced we have some of the best weather in the country.

Anyway, it is raining and I have just spent an hour trying to scrub grease stains and oil spills out of my chef’s coats and aprons. Since I don’t have class tonight, I put a pot of soup on the stove and am going to spend the rest of the afternoon inside, eating soup and reading Kim Severson’s Spoon Fed. I highly recommend her memoir. Especially if you, like me, have a hard time buying any novel or memoir that is not food-related. It is a great read and one I totally relate to as a California transplant in New York.

The soup I’m making to keep me and my book company is a super simple French onion soup. Super simple is really a tad redundant because if you have homemade stock on hand, French onion soup should always be simple. The key is cooking your onions low and slow for a long time to get them nice and caramelized. After that, just add stock, let everything simmer away for a bit and season. If you have some crusty bread on hand, all the better. Slice it up, place a slice on each bowl of soup and cover with gruyere cheese. A quick run under the broiler and you have a beautiful bowl of restaurant quality French onion soup. If I have them all on hand I like to use brown or yellow onions, red onions and shallots, but if you only have one kind, that’s okay too. I can’t stress enough what a difference homemade stock makes in a soup like this. If you want to try your hand at it, here are the steps for veal stock. If not, use a good-quality beef stock from your grocery store.

French Onion Soup
Serves 4

2 pounds mixed onions
2 T canola oil
2 quarts (8 cups) beef or veal stock
1 thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
4-8 slices crusty baguette
1/2 cup grated gruyere

Peel the onions. Cut them in half and then into thin slices so you have a large pile of half-moon slices. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Sauté the onions until beginning to soften, season with a little salt and pepper, and cover the pot. The steam captured by covering the pot will help to soften the onions without using too much oil. Uncover the pot and stir occasionally. When the onions are beginning to brown, remove the lid and continue to cook until caramelized. This can take up to 30 minutes.

Add the stock to the pan and bring to a simmer. Add the thyme and bay leaf and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Remove the thyme and bay leaf and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Preheat your broiler. Divide the soup among four serving bowls. Top with one to two slices of bread, depending on what will fit in your bowls, and sprinkle a few tablespoons of gruyere over the bread. Run under the broiler until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Take care when serving the soup as the bowls will be extremely hot from the broiler. Enjoy with a good book on a rainy day.

Back to the Grind

I woke this morning slightly confused to find myself in New York City. See, I was supposed to be back here a week ago, but, like so many others, my travel plans fell victim to the blizzard in New York. My original flight was canceled and the earliest that Virgin America could rebook me was not early enough to make it back for my class at The French Culinary Institute last Wednesday. Rather than continue to fight lines and standby lists at the airport, I extended my stay in California and what was meant to be a five-day trip, turned into 12.

I would have been disappointed to miss any class at FCI, but last week was my buffet night. In level 4, students spend two weeks preparing food for a buffet that the entire school attends. I had been working on a foie gras terrine, head cheese, kimchi and bulgogi, a carrot sesame terrine, a dark chocolate crepe cake, duck confit, and cassoulet. I was enormously disappointed that I did not get to taste the final products or help my team present all of the food. Disappointed isn’t the right word, I was inconsolable.

But, as one learns to do, I made the best of it. I visited with old friends and enjoyed walking around town in sandals and a dress, soaking up the sun. So much so, that by the end of my trip, wool coats and waterproof boots seemed like a distant memory. Until of course, I awoke this morning to find myself in my Chelsea apartment, with the floors slanted ever so slightly westward.

I walked the 1.5 miles to work this morning to shock my body back into acceptance of the cold weather. After work, I am heading home to clean out the fridge (food tends to spoil when you are gone a week more than planned) and to make a bevy of soups, including this one, so I have a stockpile of lunches and dinners for the week.

This soup is comforting and hearty. Ground walnuts are used to add flavor and a bit of thickness. The original recipe calls for fresh tomatoes, but this time of year I always use canned in soups and stews. Tomatoes were not meant to grow in January and when they do, they have little flavor. If you are not comfortable with vermicelli or can’t find it, feel free to use a more traditional pasta.

Ground Walnut and Tomato Soup
Adapted from Real Food Magazine

4 T butter
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 t salt, plus more to taste
1/2 t ground black pepper
1/2 t whole coriander seed
1 cup walnuts, finely ground
2 cups water
2 oz vermicelli, broken into pieces
28 oz can whole plum tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Heat 3 tablespoons of butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and sweat until softened. Place the garlic, salt, pepper and coriander in a food processor and process until ground and combined. Add the spice blend to the onions along with the ground walnuts and water, Bring to a simmer and add the vermicelli. Simmer covered for 20 minutes. In a separate pot, cook the tomatoes over low heat until softened. Add the tomatoes to the soup and simmer for five minutes. Add the parsley, cilantro and remaining tablespoon of butter to the pot and adjust the seasoning, if necessary, before serving.

Comfort in a Bowl

Most days I push myself pretty hard. I work full time and go to school at night. In my spare minutes I compose posts for Apples and Butter, do a bit of freelance writing and work my tush off at making contacts within my industry here in New York. During my best weeks, I even get up early to stop by the gym on my way in to work.

Today is not one of those days and it is certainly not one of those weeks.

I took my level three final last night at The French Culinary Institute. It was the midterm for the entire program at FCI and worth 50 percent of my grade. In other words, a big deal. While it is a relief to have the thing over with, I am feeling a bit worn down from the whole process.

The flip side of pushing myself so hard is that I also have learned how to hit the brakes and indulge myself a bit when it is truly needed. Today I have plans for a lunchtime trip to Strand to treat myself to a new (used) cookbook or two to flip through while I lay in my cozy bed watching movies, and a big bowl of warm, comforting soup for dinner.

There is something so restorative about a bowl of soup.

This is yet another riff (or shall I say variation? Somewhere between this week and last, I began to hate the word riff, which is entirely unfortunate since it seems to be the favored word of bloggers and established writers alike when referring to their own take on something: ‘My riff on Suzanne Goin’s bacon-wrapped dates,” or “we were riffing on different potato-based soups.” Ugh). I digress. This is yet another way to use my vegetable soup formula. Specifically, this is an example of how to use the formula to make a roasted vegetable soup. Butternut squash is the main ingredient, but I also threw in some roasted mushrooms. I find the savory flavor of mushrooms in pureed soup to add a creaminess that is particularly comforting and I may have mentioned this already, but today I am in need of some comfort.

Refer back to the original vegetable soup formula if you would like to make some changes to this basic variation. And by all means do. Your perfect bowl of comfort may not look exactly like mine.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Mushroom Soup

1 lb cubed butternut squash
8 oz domestic mushrooms, sliced or quartered, plus more for garnish if desired
Canola oil
1 small onion, or half of a larger one, diced
A few sprigs of tarragon
A few springs of thyme
1 1/2 – 2 quarts of vegetable stock (6 – 8 cups)
Salt and pepper to taste
Walnut oil (optional)

Preheat oven to 375˚
Toss the mushrooms and butternut squash with a bit of oil and salt pepper. Spread out the vegetables on a roasting pan and bake until the squash is tender, about 30 to 40 minutes. Add a bit of canola oil to a soup pot placed over medium heat. Add the diced onion and sauté until softened. Add the thyme and tarragon and sauté for a minute or two longer. Add the roasted vegetables to the pot and cover with vegetable stock. Simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the thyme and tarragon and transfer the mixture to a blender to puree, in batches if necessary. Return the pureed soup to the pot and season with salt and pepper. If desired, serve with a garnish of roasted mushrooms and a bit of walnut oil.

Vegetable Soup Formula

Vegetable soups are quickly becoming my savior as I enter my first, cold New York winter. I used to bring salads to work in Los Angeles year-round and they proved sufficient for a quick meal at my desk. I tried that here in New York during the first few weeks of November and it turned out to be less than satisfying. So much so that when faced with the green leaves staring back at me from the office refrigerator, I quickly turned and walked out the door in search of something warm and a bit more comforting.

The main problem with my new lunchtime ritual is the detrimental effect it has had on the snugness of my wardrobe. Add that to the battle already underway with the culinary school bulge and it is a recipe for disaster. One more trip to Guy & Gallard for lobster bisque and no amount of Saturday morning boot camp in Central Park is going to bring me back.

Enter the humble vegetable soup. This is the perfect comfort food compromise. It is warm, thick and packed with the flavors of fall, but if you keep the ingredients to vegetables, stock and a few key flavorings, it is supremely healthy and nourishing.

This recipe, as with most, is just a guideline. Be sure to experiment with your favorite flavors. Keep this simple formula in mind and you will produce a successful soup every time:

1. Sauté diced onions in a bit of oil. After the onions soften add any garlic, ginger or other such flavorings (not herbs) and sauté a bit more. Season with salt and pepper.
2. For a roasted vegetable soup, dice the vegetables and roast at 375˚ until tender. Alternately, you can add the vegetables to the pot with the onions and sauté a bit to achieve some color. If roasting, add the vegetables to the pot with the softened onions after roasting.
3. Add enough vegetable stock to cover everything, toss in any herbs you want to use and simmer for at least 30 minutes. If you did not roast the vegetables, make sure they are tender before proceeding.
4. Remove the herbs and use an immersion blender or a standard blender to purée the soup.
5. Return the puréed soup to the pan and season to taste with salt and pepper.

There. You just made delicious and healthy vegetable soup. The only thing I must insist on is that you, if at all possible, make your own vegetable stock. It is so simple, yet it adds so much to the final product. Not to mention that it is a great way to use up vegetable scraps. For a refresher on vegetable stock, go here. If you are not quite ready to experiment on your own, here is the recipe for my latest concoction, carrot ginger pear soup.

Carrot Ginger Pear Soup
Makes about 2 quarts

1 small onion, diced
2 T vegetable oil
1 pound carrots
2 ripe pears
2 slices fresh ginger
1 1/2 quarts vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Heat a medium pot over medium high heat. Add the oil and diced onion and sauté until soft. Add the ginger slices and continue to sauté. While the onions are sautéing, peel and roughly chop the carrots and pears. Add the carrots and pears to the pot and sauté until beginning to soften, five to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and simmer for 30 minutes until the carrots are tender.

To temper the spice of the ginger, remove the slices before pureeing. If you want more zip, leave the ginger in. Purée the mixture using an immersion or standard blender. Return the purée to the pot and season with salt and pepper to taste. If the soup is too thick, add a bit more vegetable stock to thin it out. Serve or cool and divide into containers for storage.

Healthy(er) Clam Chowder

Whoa. Is anyone else noticing that the older you get, the harder the holidays seem to hit your waistline? Or is it just my ridiculously over-indulgent eating and not something I can blame on the ever progressing hands of father time? Either way it is definitely in order to spend a bit of time with the Apples portion of this blog. After all, Apples and Butter is supposed to be about balance. I fear my tendency is to ignore the healthier side of eating, both on this blog and in my kitchen!

After three months of indulgent eating (anything post-September counts as the holidays to me), I wasn’t quite ready to switch over to carrot sticks and salads. Enter Sunset Magazine with their revamped comfort foods. This recipe for clam chowder remains creamy, but is made primarily with low-fat milk. It made for a great post-Christmas meal with my family. Warm and indulgent enough to be fully satisfying and comforting while not packing on the calories and fat content that would have come with the quart of heavy cream called for in the original recipe. Enjoy this with nothing more than a loaf of crusty bread and congratulate yourself on indulging while still managing to cut back on calories.

Healthy(er) Clam Chowder
Serves 6

1 T olive oil
1 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced carrot
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 strips bacon, cut into lardons
1/4 cup flour
3 cups low-fat (1%) milk
1 pound small red potatoes, quartered
4 cans (6.5 oz. each) chopped clams, drained
2 bottles (8 oz. each) clam juice
Salt and pepper
1 t chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/4 cup half-and-half

Preparation

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Sautee the onion, celery, carrot and garlic until starting to soften. Transfer to a plate. Add the bacon to the pan and cook until crisp. Drain the bacon on paper towels and discard all but 1 T of drippings. Add the flour to the drippings to make a roux and cook until slightly browned. Add the milk, one cup at a time, making sure each cup is fully incorporated before adding the next. Add the potatoes, clams, clam juice and reserved vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add the thyme and half-and-half. Before serving, sprinkle individual portions with the bacon.

The First Soup of Fall

The first soup of fall is a highly anticipated event at my house - at least by me. I’m not certain that anyone else even notices that rich, warm soups have been missing from the menu for months.

For Southern California residents like myself, it takes a certain finesse to know when the time is right for that first soup. Though the first official day of fall was September 22, the ninety degree weather we were experiencing at the time certainly was not conducive to soup. Here are a few signs I look for to help me figure out if it’s time: the last tomato has been pulled from the vines in the backyard; rather than gazpacho, I start to crave something warm and substantial; and the idea of turning the oven on for a few hours sounds comforting rather than torturous.

That time arrived on a recent Sunday when temperatures finally dipped below seventy and a low-lying Pacific fog that rolled in off the coast made me want to stay inside and hunker down with something nourishing. I was holding on to a recipe for Maple Carrot Soup from Delicious Magazine for just that kind of day. This soup is delicious, hearty and nourishing – all of the things one might want in a great fall soup. Just be sure to have it as an appetizer as it is surprisingly filling in large portions.

Of course, since I made this soup, temperatures in Los Angeles have returned to the eighties and I broke a sweat yesterday just walking to lunch. I hear that more cool weather is just around the corner and for once, I couldn’t be happier - perhaps the result of a recent trip to New York that forced me to bundle up in jackets and scarves as temperatures dropped into the…wait for it… fifties…gasp(!)… Surprisingly, this California girl loved it and is now ready for fall with scarves and rain boots in hand and on foot.



Maple Carrot Soup
Adapted from Delicious Magazine
Serves 6 - 8

2 pounds carrots, cleaned
2 onions, diced
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and grated
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 T olive oil + more if needed
4 cups chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Crème fraiche to serve

Preheat oven to 350*
Slice the carrots about 1/4-inch think. A mandolin will make quick work of this. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. Toss the carrots and onions with the ginger, garlic, maple syrup and olive oil and place on the baking sheet. Roast for 30-40 minutes, stirring and turning once or twice during cooking. If the carrots look like they are drying out, add more olive oil a tablespoon at a time. When the carrots and onions begin to soften, transfer them to a large pot with all of the juices from the baking sheet and add the chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes until the carrots are completely soft. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup in the pot, adding more water or stock as necessary to thin it out. Serve appetizer portions with a dollop of crème fraiche, maple syrup and snipped chives.

Chilled Corn Soup

I’ve just placed an order with Seeds of Change for the second round of veggies that I’m starting from seed this year. I already have one tray growing in my kitchen, but I’ll get around to that another day. Included in this recent order is a packet of corn seeds. Corn is something that I have never grown at home - not in my mother’s vegetable garden, not in my own garden from nursery seedlings and certainly not from seed. However, having become somewhat obsessed with the stuff over the past year, I knew I had to have it at the ready in my backyard this summer.

Paying no attention to seasonality or how far the corn has had to travel to reach my kitchen from someplace warm enough to grow it, I buy it when I see it and I use it quickly. Most of the time I don’t even bother cooking it. I cut it right from the cob and toss it with some chopped mango and a squeeze of lemon juice. The only thing that surprises me about my order is how long I’ve waited to grow my own. Did you know that the sugar in some corn varieties can turn to starch less than 24 hours after harvesting? I’m definitely looking forward to harvesting right before cooking.

With corn on the brain (and three ears in the fridge), I started flipping through recipes looking for something to make. I recently printed my first recipe off of Bravo’s Top Chef site. It’s a chilled corn soup recipe from Jamie Lauren. She rocks at making soup and I seem to remember the judges loving this one. Who am I to argue with Tom Colicchio?

The judges were not wrong. This dish is delicious and definitely not your ordinary corn soup. It’s served chilled and the hint of mint that comes through is refreshing, not overpowering. Whatever you do, don’t skip the kernels of corn as a garnish. The crunchy bursts of sweetness were perfection. And when making the chili oil (or handling chilies at any other time), don’t do what I did and accidentally touch your eye. Burn, burn, burn. A temporary distraction from the delicious soup.




Jamie Lauren’s Chilled Corn Soup
Adapted to serve 3 – 4

3 ears corn + kernels for garnish (an additional ear will yield more than enough)
2 oz butter
2 cloves garlic
1 yellow onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
1 russet potato, quartered
6 sprigs of mint, secured with twine
Salt to taste
1 quart vegetable stock
3/4 cup heavy cream
Chili oil to taste (recipe follows)

Cut corn off the cob. Heat butter over medium heat, smash garlic and add to pan. Fry until fragrant and just beginning to color, then add onion. Sautee until the onion is translucent and soft. Add the celery and sauté until soft. Add the potato quarters, corn and mint with a healthy pinch of salt. Cover with vegetable stock and bring to a simmer. Let simmer until the potato is soft. Remove the mint. Puree soup in a blender in three batches, adding 1/4 cup of cream to each batch. Strain the soup and chill. Serve topped with corn kernels, mint and chili oil.

Chili oil
1 t crushed chilies
1/4 cup olive oil

Heat the oil gently over low heat and add chilies. Let steep for 10 - 20 minutes until the chilies have released their flavor and some color into the oil.

Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup

Fish Water, aka Nam Bplah, aka Thai Fish Sauce is my newest staple flavor. It's a central flavor in Thai cooking and is used in similar ways to how westerners use salt as a flavoring. I would not say that the two are interchangeable. Fish sauce definitely imparts a flavor to Thai food that cannot be duplicated by just adding salt.

I'm not sure where my love of Asian flavors comes from. I started eating sushi with my family when I was very young and I'm guessing it has grown from there. The truth is that I have never met an ethnic food that I didn't like so let's just chalk it up to a love of all ethnic food. When I'm craving Thai food, this soup can be ready in 20 minutes and usually hits the spot.

Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup

Adapted from Everyday Food

1 T freshly grated ginger

4 minced garlic cloves

1 T canola oil

1 can coconut milk

4 cups water

1 T cornstarch

2 carrots peeled and cut into thin two-inch strips

1 oz Mee Krob noodles

2 scallions, sliced vertically

6 colossal shrimp

2 T lime juice

1 T fish sauce

Salt to taste

Heat oil in a medium pot and add garlic and ginger. Cook until just heated through and add coconut milk and water. Remove a small amount of cooking liquid to a bowl and stir in cornstarch. Return cornstarch slurry to the pot, add carrots and bring to a boil. Once carrots are just tender, add noodles and cook for 4 - 5 minutes. Add shrimp and remove from heat (shrimp will continue to cook). Stir in lime juice and fish sauce and salt to taste. Divide soup between two bowls, top with scallions and enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Soup

Soup has been on the mind lately with the weather turning colder. We actually had a little bit of rain on Saturday which inspired the making of this batch. There's something about that first bit of rain each fall that is so welcomed. It's like those first few hot days of summer. They haven't been around in so long that you are just dying for them to come along.

I've been making a soup like this since I started cooking in college. It has changed much over the years, but the basic idea remains the same. Roasted tomatoes, pureed into a wonderful and warming dish.

Roasted Tomato Soup

Serves 6

2 lbs plum tomatoes

1 red bell pepper

1 onion

2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 T tomato paste

6 dill sprigs

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 450*

Halve the tomatoes and peel and quarter the onions. Remove the stem and seeds from the bell pepper and cut into large chunks. Place all the vegetables on a greased baking sheet and roast for 25 minutes until the edges start to char. Remove to a large pot and add stock. Tie the dill sprigs together with kitchen twine and add to the pot. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 30 minutes. Remove the dill sprigs and let the vegetables cool slightly before transferring to a blender and pureeing. At this point you can strain the soup, but I prefer to keep the thickness you get without straining it. Return the soup to the pot and add the heavy cream and salt. Split between six soup bowls and garnish with dill and creme fraiche. Enjoy!

Curried Pea Soup

The Indian flavors in this soup are really subtle, so if you're not a big fan or if you're not familiar with Indian cooking, give it a try anyway. It's a nice variation on the usual pea soup.

Curried Pea Soup

Serves 4 as a starter

1 T canola oil

1/2 onion diced

2 garlic cloves crushed

1/4 t crushed ginger

2 t curry powder

1 lb bag of peas

3 cups veggie stock

1/4 t salt

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onion and cook until starting to turn translucent, about five minutes. Add garlic, ginger and curry to the onions and cook, stirring regularly, for about five more minutes. Add peas and cook until warmed through. Add veggie stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer mixture for about 10 minutes and then remove from heat. Cool slightly before using an immersion blender to puree the mixture. Garnish with a sprig of tarragon before serving and enjoy!

Quick Gazpacho

The first thing I like to make when I pull full-flavored, homegrown tomatoes off the vine is my quick gazpacho. I've always loved gazpacho, but got tired of all the chopping and prep work involved in it. I make this version in my Cuisinart and it makes really quick work of it.

This may thicken if you let it hang out in the fridge. I always keep extra tomato juice to thin it out if necessary.

Quick Gazpacho

Serves 6

3 cups cherry tomatoes

1 red bell pepper

1 cucumber peeled and seeded

3 celery stalks

1/2 vidalia onion

2 cloves garlic

1 T worcestershire

1 T olive oil

1/2 t salt

4 cups tomato juice or tomato vegetable blend (low sodium)

Cut bell pepper, cucumber, celery and onion into large chunks. Put garlic into food processor and pulse until finely chopped. and bell pepper, cucumber, onion and tomatoes to the food processor and pulse until roughly chopped. Remove vegetables to a bowl and add worcestershire, olive oil and salt and stir to combine. Stir in tomato juice and let chill in the fridge for at least two hours to let all the flavors meld. Enjoy!