Butternut squash and roasted red pepper soup
Autumn is well and truly here in the Northern Hemisphere - it’s dark by 4.30pm, work Christmas dinners are in the planning stages and the leaves are very much in the process of falling off the trees and making a crunchy carpet on the floor. Thankfully it’s still quite mild here weather-wise for the most part (we’ve yet to have a frost) but after the record breaking summer that we had this year it is a bit of a shock to the system having to enter into the colder and darker months.
You can’t really get much more autumnal a vegetable than some kind of squash, whether that be a cute little onion squash or a massive Hallowe’en pumpkin. Butternut squash is probably the most commonly eaten squash here in the UK, with its sweet flesh and wide availability. They are a bit of a pain to prepare however, so I probably don’t eat them as much as I should! When I do muster up the courage to spend fifteen minutes attacking said vegetable with a kitchen knife, one of my favourite ways to eat it is blitzed up in a soup. This recipe, where chunks of butternut squash are joined by roasted red peppers and a good warming measure of cumin, has been languishing as a note on my phone for over a decade (judging by the date it must have originated on an iPhone 3G). I’ve tweaked the odd quantity and technique in the subsequent years, but the essence has remained the same - a straightforward soup with relatively few ingredients that requires a bit of love in the oven before coming together on the hob to finish.
The key ingredient that elevates this soup above a basic squash soup is the cumin. Don’t be tempted to leave out the spice - rather than giving the whole dish an overly “curry” flavour, the cumin simply adds warmth and an extra savoury note which complements perfectly with both the sweet squash and the red pepper. If you want to spice up the soup even further, you can finish it off with a sprinkling of chilli flakes and a good amount of black pepper. Serve with your bread and butter of choice; I’ve also had it alongside warm homemade cheese scones which was such an excellent idea that I should do again.
While I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to eat it all straightaway, this soup will also keep for a day or two in an airtight container in the fridge. If you’ve got a big enough saucepan (alas, I do not) you could also very easily double up the recipe and store the resulting batch in the freezer. I hope that this soup gives you the nice warm glow that a good soup should and leaves you wanting seconds!
Butternut squash and roasted red pepper soup
Serves: 4, generously | Total time: 1hr | Source: vicki cooks veggie
Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash, or 2 small cooking pumpkins/squash
2 red peppers
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used rapeseed)
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 white onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped
850ml (28 fl oz) vegetable stock - I use 3 Oxo stock cubes for that amount of boiling water
Olive oil, coriander and dried chilli flakes (optional)
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F.
Remove the skin and seeds from the squash and cut into 1 inch cubes and place into a large roasting tin. Take your red peppers, de-seed them and cut into 3 or 4 large slices before also adding to the tin. Drizzle over 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 2 tsp cumin plus some salt and pepper and mix together well. Once the oven is hot, add the tray and roast for 30 minutes.
When the squash has about 10 minutes left on its cooking time, heat the remaining tablespoon of vegetable oil on a medium heat in a large saucepan (at least 2.5 litre capacity). Take your chopped white onion and leek (make sure to wash the leek well to get rid of any grit!) and add it to the pan. Cook for around 5-10 minutes until the vegetables have softened, stirring well to make sure that the leek doesn’t burn.
Add the last teaspoon of cumin to the pan and cook out for 1 minute.
Once the squash and peppers are cooked, remove the skin from the pepper (if you wish) and chop it into smaller pieces. Add the roasted vegetables to the pan along with the 850ml vegetable stock. Allow the stock to come to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and blend until smooth, either using a jug or stick blender. Serve drizzled with olive oil and a scattering of coriander leaves and chilli flakes if you like!