Smoked Zucchini Soup

Aki made some incredible broccoli and cheddar cheese soup for our recent guests.  In fact, as I type I am drinking an enormous mug of it.  Anyway, one key to her simple soup was that she used the broccoli blanching liquid as the soup base.  Sounds simple enough, yet in most cases that water ends up down the drain.  Following her frugal ways, I made smoked zucchini soup.  I melted some onions in a pan and then added the green exterior of the zucchini to sauté and just cook through. The center core of the zucchini I set aside and smoked for about twenty minutes over cherry wood.  While the zucchini core smoked, I cooked and then chilled the vibrant green zucchini and melted onions.  The pot had some residual onion fond which I deglazed with water and then added the briefly smoked zucchini cores.  I brought the liquid to a boil, let in infuse for twenty minutes then strained and chilled it.  When both components of the soup were ice cold, I pureed them together and strained the finished product, smoked zucchini soup.  We arranged the soup with roast Meyer lemon-yogurt gnocchi, young marjoram and maple lacquered Japanese eel.  The result of the soup reiterates the idea of using what is normally discarded in a new way in order to integrate tastes and flavors into dishes.