Butternut soup is a simple
vegetarian dish that you don't need expert cooking skills or lots of kitchen kit in order to make, and so it is
great bachelor food 1: three or more meals worth of food cooked in one large pot; or if you have people over, one meal for three or more people. It uses cheap ingredients, and is not unhealthy either. It can also scale up, provided that you have a large enough pot.
My version of butternut soup is simple to make and tastes great, due in no small part to butternuts being excellent vegetables.
You will need the following ingredients:
You will need the following ingredients:
- A big pot, preferably with a lid. (and a stove, silly!)
- a sharp knife and surface to chop stuff upon
- a potato masher (or hand blender if you want to get fancy)
First cut up the butternut into chunks; removing the skin, seeds and soft and stringy bits that go with the seeds. The exact size of the chunks is not important at all, but I aim for smaller than fist sized to make it cook quickly. Wash and cut up the sweet potatoes (removing the skin is not necessary, but cut out the grey bits). Peel and chop up the onions. Throw all of this in the big pot, put in water until it is three-quarters covered, and boil the living daylights out of it.
During this time you can add salt, pepper, chilli, garlic, vegatable stock and other herbs to hand if you want to. Spicing is something that I usually do on the fly with whatever spices I can pull out of the cupboard, and a lot of taste-testing. But there are two main paths to the spicing: the herby route of sage and garlic, and the hot route of chilli and pepper. I normally take the hot route because it's easier and I like it. Note that some things like salt and pepper are robust enough to add initially, but some more delicate ingredients should be added later.
After half an hour or so it will all be getting soft, but what you want is soup not mushy vegetables, so mash it with the potato masher, and boil it some more. If I have white wine open, I would add a half or whole glass at this stage.
Another ten minutes should give you lovely orange goop. At this stage watch out for it getting too thick, and sticking and burning at the bottom. Add water if this is an issue.
Put on the lid to prevent the thick boiling goop from spattering your kitchen. It is basically soup, but it is thick enough to trot a mouse so you could call it stew if you like.
Serve once it has cooled to an edible temperature (careful! thick soup is excellent at retaining heat; and a burned mouth is no fun). If you have bread, serve that alongside for dipping. If you want to get fancy, drop a bit of goats cheese and/or other garnishings in the middle of each portion.
Variations
princess loulou's variation is to peel the sweet potatoes, to add lots of fresh
ginger at the start (very warming), and lots of ground
coriander at the end.
wertperch says: "Must try it with sweet potato, I normally use carrots".
1) My theory of bachelor cooking is simple: if you only use one pot or pan, it not really cooking, just fixing yourself some food. Two pots, like the main dish in one and a sauce in a second one: that's cuisine buddy, why do you need to make that just for yourself? Go with a date to a restaurant instead.