Curried pumpkin soup

Last month, Heidi from 101cookbooks wrote up a recipe for Thai-spiced pumpkin soup that looked and sounded delicious. I must admit, in general, soup is not my favorite. I much prefer a more varied, crunchy meal to soup: I get bored quickly. But as the weather has turned, and knowing my husband is a soup-aholic, I have found my thoughts wandering toward soups. This particular soup sounded wonderful.

When I do go for soup, I am generally drawn to spicy and flavorful. It’s the spices that attracted me to Heidi’s pumpkin soup. Trolling down the produce aisle last weekend, I noticed that pre-sliced, packaged butternut squash was in abundance. I immediately remembered the pumpkin soup and decided to put my own spin on the recipe based on what was available and easy. I snatched up a few packages of cubed butternut squash and a fresh, crusty baguette and set off to whip up a batch of soup.

My take on the recipe uses (as mentioned) butternut squash and a combination of powdered Indian curries vs. the red Thai curry paste that I did not have. I followed Heidi’s method but ended up with a soup that looks thicker than her version, and garnished it with crème fraîche (and scallions), which provided a nice counterpoint to the heat.

I sprinkled the squash with kosher salt and wrapped it in a foil packet with a few generous pats of butter. I roasted the squash at 375° for an hour or so until the cubes were tender, and then, similar to the pumpkin soup recipe, put the squash in a large saucepan on the stove over medium heat, brought it to a simmer with a cup or so of coconut milk, 2 teaspoons+ of yellow (turmeric-rich) curry, a teaspoon+ of a spicy curry mix, ¼ teaspoon+ ginger, and some very generous pinches of salt. I used my immersion blender off-heat to purée the mixture, brought it back to a simmer, and added a little water to thin it out. I adjusted the seasonings until I had a flavorful soup I was happy with. The whole apartment smelled wonderful!

I could easily see a few additional variations on this soup. It would make a very nice amuse-bouche in a little shot glass topped with some crème fraîche. I could easily see a lower fat version made with plain yogurt vs. coconut milk or a yogurt-coconut milk combination. Of course, there are many different curry blends to experiment with and I’m sure all would work well. The addition of some fresh julienned ginger as a garnish instead of scallion would be nice too. Thanks Heidi for the idea!

P.S. My father-in-law made the mug I used for a soup bowl - isn't it lovely?