It's soup season again! Finally!
We were fortunate enough to have the boyfriend's mother grow some fine examples of hokkaido squash for us and I could not wait to turn it into soup. Can you go wrong with hokkaido squash soup with orange juice, ginger, and sambal oelek? Yeah, I didn't think so.Where's the difference between a squash and a pumpkin? I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm always excited to learn new things. My mothertongue German only has one word ["Kürbis"] for both types of vegetable, so I never saw a reason to distinguish between the two different vegetables.
So this was lunch for the boyfriend and me and also served as a nice present for my parents when we came to visit them.
The good thing is that soups like these do not rely on exact measures and diligently counted drops of ... something. Here's the rough draft of what I used and how I made it:
Spicy Hokkaido Squash Soup
Ingredients:
- 1 hokkaido squash
- 500ml of veggie stock (we make tons of it and then freeze it)
- 500ml of pureed tomatoes
- 300ml of orange juice
- 200ml of white wine (optional)
- 3 onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- some oil of your choice
- a varying amount of sambal oelek, depending on your preferred level of heat)
- 1 can of coconut milk (I think I used around 400ml)
- a chunk of fresh ginger
- salt
- some pumpkin seeds
Instructions:
- Cut the squash into pieces (the smaller the pieces, the faster it cooks) and remove the seeds.
- Chop the onions into small pieces and sauté them in a big pot in the oil. Once they become translucent, add finely chopped garlic and (equally finely chopped ginger).
- Deglaze with white wine. (This basically means: Take the wine and toss it in the pot.)
- Add veggie stock and then throw in the pieces of squash. Let this simmer until the squash is nicely cooked.
- Hit the mixture with a blender and blend it until you cannot see any chunks any more.
- Add pureed tomatoes and orange juice.
- Add a moderate amount of sambal oelek. See if you want more.
- Add coconut milk.
- Add salt if necessary (this depends on factors such as the saltiness of your veggie stock or of the sambal oelek).
- Serve with some pumpkin seeds sprinkled over it and some bread or tortillas if you feel like it. If you're like me, you'll also decorate with some more sambal oelek! :)
Enjoy!
Oh, and by the way: This freezes well. Which is why I always make a huge pot (double the recipe or more) and the just freeze the leftovers for home made convenient food! No odd ingredients, no preservatives, just make sure you label what you freeze to avoid surprise dinner from the freezer.
