Friday, October 26, 2007

china spiced soup

Squash_soup


Crown Prince squashes, in my opinion have the best taste and the best look. Pale duck egg blue with the deepest orange flesh. I made this soup with a quarter of a squash I have been hacking hunks off for the past two weeks.  The soup turned out to be delicious and velvety smooth with the peppers and star anise really adding to the flavour.


Squash Soup


  • 50g butter

  • 1 large onion, roughly chopped

  • 3 sticks celery, roughly chopped

  • 2 garlic cloves

  • 2 red peppers, de-seeded and roughly chopped

  • 1 inch fresh ginger, chopped

  • 1/4 crown prince squash, skinned, de-seeded and roughly chopped

  • roughly, 2 pints fresh chicken stock or veg stock - marigold bouillon is good

  • 1 tsp Chinese Five Spice powder

  • 2 star anise

  • 1 cinnamon stick    


For garnish


  • handful of cashews mixed with a little oil and sprinkle of Chinese Five Spice and roasted for 5 minutes in moderate oven.

  • a chunk fresh ginger, peeled and finely sliced

  1. Melt butter in heavy based large saucepan and fry onions and celery until soft.

  2. Add garlic cloves, red peppers, ginger, five-spice, star anise, cinnamon and squash. Stir for a few minutes to stop veg sticking to base of pan.

  3. Add stock and simmer until reduced.

  4. Blend soup mixture until smooth. No need to sieve.

  5. To serve, add sliced ginger and spiced cashews.

1 comment:

  1. This looks really great and hope to make a batch to keep me going at lunchtimes. I love squashes - but despite this I am unsure what a crown prince squash looks like? I am guessing that it could be the duck egg blue ones with orange flesh on the inside but I could be wildly out?

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