Butternut Soup
Serves 8

Ingredients:
2 medium Butternut Squash, diced
1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped
2 medium Onions, chopped
4 Tbs. Butter or Margarine
1 1/2 tsp. medium Curry Powder
4 Tbs. Cake Flour
Pinch of ground Nutmeg
2 cubes Chicken Stock
750ml boiling Water (3 cups)
500ml Milk (2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
Heavy Cream, optional garnish

Melt the butter or margarine in a soup pot over medium heat. Sauté the onions in the melted butter or margarine for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the curry powder, butternut squash, and chopped apple. Sauté lightly for another 3 to 5 minutes.

Add the flour and nutmeg and increase the heat a bit to quickly stir fry the ingredients.

Meanwhile, dissolve the cubes of chicken stock in the boiling water. Add stock, milk and salt to butternut sauté mixture.

Boil with lid closed on moderate heat till the butternut is soft. Stir and check occasionally. When soft, puree or blend till smooth and creamy. Serve Hot.

Optional extra is to add some cream to the finished soup, just a swirl in the middle of each bowl served.

This is a soup I made recently from butternut squash, which doesn't usually lend itself to much sublety, but cooked in this way, it was surprisingly good. I used small squash with pale, yellow-orange flesh rather than the bright orange variety, and the finished soup was a lustrous gold, not too sweet, very savoury, but delicate.

Cut a butternut squash in half lengthwise and then cut each half into two inch half-circles. Remove the skin and seeds with a paring knife. Cut one quarter of the squash into half-inch square pieces and set these aside. Place the remaining larger pieces on an oiled baking tray. Peel and cut a large white onion in half and add this to the tray, along with some celery stalks. Roast until the squash is thoroughly cooked (takes half an hour or so).

Blend the cooked ingredients with heated water (cover the top of the blender with a folded cloth just in case the steam pushes the lid off the blender and burns your hand). Place a mesh colander on top of a soup pot and pour the blended mixture into it, using a Rubbermaid spatula to push it through.

Thin to a desired consistency by adding water or a light-coloured vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and then lower the temperature to medium-high. Add the uncooked cubed butternut squash and allow it to cook for 15 minutes or so.

To season, add butter, salt, and a little lemon juice (very important to balance the sweetness of the squash), white pepper, and a little buttermilk for a bit of tang. But don't boil the soup once you've added the buttermilk or it may separate.

Sprinkle with a generous amount of black pepper before serving.

Note: I made a similar soup after a few weeks after making this one, with vivid orange butternut squash and added white kidney beans, Romano beans, and some other seasonings (cumin, garlic, ancho chilli powder). Both of these soups were made for a large group of people and received rave reviews.

I invented this soup sort of on the fly, Mom was out and I needed to whip up a presentable dinner. The only vegetables we had were some potatoes, vivid orange butternuts and loads of onions. It looks sort of similar to Jinmyo's recipe, same basic ingredients, I guess, only it may take less time to make and probably has less subtlety. You'd only need one saucepan or pot the whole way through, and it takes about 30 minutes from beginning to end.

• Follow Jinmyo's directions for cutting the squash. (Any way you cut it is fine, actually.)
• Peel and dice a large white onion. Saute in olive oil until glassy.
• Throw in diced butternut, (Potatoes too, if you want, but that's optional). Salt lightly. Leave uncovered on low flame, stirring occasionally until the squash browns on the edges.
• Add some water. Not much, you don't want the veggie to float, only rest barely submerged.
• Cover pot, let it simmer until the butternut is cooked through.
• Blend the soup. I use a handblender, it eliminates extra dishes etc.
• Add salt if needed, doubtful.
  Throw in some black pepper.

Granted, this isn't very scientific recipe, but it works, and it's relatively quick, and I think it's YUMMY..

Butternut soup is a simple vegetarian dish that you don't need expert cooking skills or lots of kitchen kit in order to make, and so it is great bachelor food ¹: three or more meals worth of food cooked in one large pot; or if you have people over, one meal for three or more people. It uses cheap ingredients, and is not unhealthy either. It can also scale up, provided that you have a large enough pot.

My version of butternut soup is simple to make and tastes great, due in no small part to butternuts being excellent vegetables.

You will need the following ingredients:

• One medium to large butternut
• Two medium sized sweet potatoes (i.e. almost as much flesh as the butternut)
• An onion or two
• Salt and pepper
• Optional herbs, spices, vegetable stock, garlic, chili peppers or chili powder, etc.
• Optional bread, cheese or soft white creamy goat cheese
• Optional garnishings such as parsley, basil, spring onions

You will need the following ingredients:

• A big pot, preferably with a lid. (and a stove, silly!)
• a sharp knife and surface to chop stuff upon
• a potato masher (or hand blender if you want to get fancy)

First cut up the butternut into chunks; removing the skin, seeds and soft and stringy bits that go with the seeds. The exact size of the chunks is not important at all, but I aim for smaller than fist sized to make it cook quickly. Wash and cut up the sweet potatoes (removing the skin is not necessary, but cut out the grey bits). Peel and chop up the onions. Throw all of this in the big pot, put in water until it is three-quarters covered, and boil the living daylights out of it.

During this time you can add salt, pepper, chilli, garlic, vegatable stock and other herbs to hand if you want to. Spicing is something that I usually do on the fly with whatever spices I can pull out of the cupboard, and a lot of taste-testing. But there are two main paths to the spicing: the herby route of sage and garlic, and the hot route of chilli and pepper. I normally take the hot route because it's easier and I like it. Note that some things like salt and pepper are robust enough to add initially, but some more delicate ingredients should be added later.

After half an hour or so it will all be getting soft, but what you want is soup not mushy vegetables, so mash it with the potato masher, and boil it some more. If I have white wine open, I would add a half or whole glass at this stage.

Another ten minutes should give you lovely orange goop. At this stage watch out for it getting too thick, and sticking and burning at the bottom. Add water if this is an issue. Put on the lid to prevent the thick boiling goop from spattering your kitchen. It is basically soup, but it is thick enough to trot a mouse so you could call it stew if you like.

Serve once it has cooled to an edible temperature (careful! thick soup is excellent at retaining heat; and a burned mouth is no fun). If you have bread, serve that alongside for dipping. If you want to get fancy, drop a bit of goats cheese and/or other garnishings in the middle of each portion.

Variations

princess loulou's variation is to peel the sweet potatoes, to add lots of fresh ginger at the start (very warming), and lots of ground coriander at the end.

wertperch says: "Must try it with sweet potato, I normally use carrots".

 

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1) My theory of bachelor cooking is simple: if you only use one pot or pan, it not really cooking, just fixing yourself some food. Two pots, like the main dish in one and a sauce in a second one: that's cuisine buddy, why do you need to make that just for yourself? Go with a date to a restaurant instead.