Chilled fennel and melon soup with crab garnish This is a great soup to cook on a hot summers day

as there is minimal cooking involved. Both the soup and the crab garnish can be made a few hours ahead but do not forget to put your soup bowls in the fridge an hour before serving. Serves 4 4 medium fennel bulbs 1-2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 tbsp Pernod 1 ripe charentais or cantaloupe melon, chilled 120ml natural yoghurt Handful of ice cubes Few dashes of Tabasco Few dashes of Worcestershire sauce For the crab garnish: 150g white crabmeat 2 spring onions, whites finely sliced 2 tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and finely diced Few dill sprigs, chopped, plus extra to garnish Few basil sprigs, leaves finely chopped 2 tbsp vinaigrette 1. Slice the base from the fennel bulbs and discard. Separate the bulb into layers and thinly slice into fine strips. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the fennel strips to the pan with a good splash of water and some seasoning. Cover and sweat the fennel over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened without colouring. 2. Remove the lid and pour in the Pernod. Cook for about 1 minute until the alcohol has evaporated. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. 3. Meanwhile, halve the melon, deseed, peel and cut into chunks. Put the cooled fennel mixture, yoghurt and 3-4 ice cubes into a blender and whizz to a smooth pure. Pass the pure through a sieve into a bowl, pushing it through with the back of a ladle and discard the solids. You should be left with about 300g fennel pure. Set aside. 4. Put the chilled melon chunks in the blender with 3-4 ice cubes and whiz until smooth. Pass all of the melon pure through a sieve into the bowl with the fennel. Whisk the two pures together until evenly blended. Add seasoning, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce to taste then chill while you prepare the crab garnish.

5. Put the crabmeat into a bowl and run your fingers through it to check for any bits of shell. Stir through the spring onion, tomatoes, dill and basil. Add vinaigrette to bind and check for seasoning. 6. To serve, place a large spoonful of the crab garnish in the centre of four chilled soup bowls. Place a dill frond on top of the crab. Pour the cold fennel and melon soup around the crab garnish then drizzle the soup with a little olive oil.