Butternut squash soup – The Indian way!
What’s not to love about soup right? Whether you are a soup person like me or on a self inflicted soup diet for weight loss, soup happens to be the perfect comforting food, especially this time of the year. When I saw some butternut squash getting old in my pantry, I decided to try out this soup recipe. This is inspired by a recipe that I had read on a friend’s blogspot and can be made using many variations.
Here’s my version.
Ingredients: Serves 6-8
Butternut squash – Diced into small cubes
Vegetable broth – 1 quart
Spices – 2 -3 cloves, 1” cinnamon stick, 1-2 twigs nutmeg, 8-10 black pepper corns
Onion – 1 diced
Garlic – 2 cloves
Red chillies – 5-6
Salt to taste
Fresh ground Pepper powder – 1 tsp
Cilantro and slivered almonds/pine nuts for garnishing
Olive oil – Preferably spray
Method: Drizzle olive oil, salt, fresh ground pepper powder onto the cubed squash pieces. You can use a multi-spice grinder that comes with sea salt, dried lemon, dried garlic and pepper instead. Grill in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Chop a medium size onion into large pieces. In a shallow frying pan, sautee’ the onions and spices and red chillies till the onions turn translucent. Let it cool.
Then puree the roasted butternut squash and onions in a blender in small batches adding in small quantities of vegetable broth instead of water. Then, bring the blended mixture to a simmer on the stove for about 5 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and slivered almonds or pine nuts.