Silky squash & coconut soup
For when the answer is, and it so often is, soup.
It’s so tempting to write about the weather, isn’t it?
I’m English, we can’t help it. But. Seriously. The rain.
There’s no gardening to be done in this. I was out picking kale yesterday and noticed the soil in the veg beds was bubbling, actually bubbling, it was so waterlogged, like sand on a beach as the tide goes out.
The answer, as so often in life, is soup
Soup is the only response to the deluge, which is starting to feel a bit end-of-days now. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the next message on the village WhatsApp wasn’t about bin day but whether anyone knows who owns the ark floating around on the village green.)
It’s a cliché that this is soup season, but the assumption that the antidote to bad weather is gluey, rib-sticking stodge is a poor prescription. The only sort of soup that’s going to get me through yet another muddy dog walk in slippy wellies and the subsequent altercation between a miserable spaniel and the hosepipe, is colour. And heat. In soup form.
I raid the remains of the pumpkin stash.
There are five squash left from October’s harvest. Three spaghetti squash and three Unknowns. They have been sitting on racks in my kitchen all winter, happily accommodating competition from dog towels and garden shoes that jostle for space on the shelves.
I say Unknowns because I sowed them, labelled them, planted them out with the labels, lost the labels to a combination of crows and galumphing wellies and now can’t find the empty seed packet in my seed box.
They are big (3-4kg) and clearly something like a Crown Prince. But I have a half memory of not being able to get Crown Ps last year and buying something like Leckor F1 (but they are smaller) or perhaps Hungarian Blues instead.
Who knows. It’s a mystery. Answers on a postcard please…
Whatever make they are, the squash harvest has worked hard this year. It’s already made:
Yes, that is rather a lot of squash recipes, isn’t it?
Still. I’ve more. So now, soup.
This is sort of recipe where you really notice the quality of the squash. A flavourless, watery butternut or a bloated Halloween style pumpkin just won’t cut it and your soup will be flaccid and forgettable. I want deep, nutty flavour and sweetness, so I’m happy to sacrifice half an Unknown squash to the cause and help lift us all out of this muddy quagmire with a good bowl of cheering soup.
Squash, ginger & coconut soup
A great batch cook, so tub up any leftovers or make a double batch and freeze for later. You can use this as a base for a more substantial meal too by adding noodles and spinach to the soup then topping with a soft-boiled egg. Remember, splash out on a really top notch squash for this one.
Serves 4
1.5kg squash (roughly half of a big one like Crown Prince)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
25g ginger, finely chopped
