Winter is long in England, very long, so quite unexpectedly I started to cook soups. For the record, I had always been complaing about having to eat soups, at school as well as at home. I didn't use to consider soups as a meal, after all, they are very liquid indeed! But well, all things change and my taste for food too, so I decided that this winter was going to be a soup winter. I invested in a blender and in a soup cookbook (that I never use) and I started to turn into my mum and ate (drink?) soups all winter. When I got bored with the traditional garden vegetable soup, I started to look for something a bit more original and found this amazing laksa soup with coconut milk (I slightly changed the recipe, but you can fing the original one there). And I can't stop cooking it since!
Ingredients
- 600 g of butternut squash, halved, peeled and deseeded
- 560 ml of chicken or vegetable stock (make sure it is dairy and gluten free)
- 200 g of basmati rice
- 800 ml of coconut milk (I use only half when I want a thicker soup)
- 1 to 3 chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
- 2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
- a large handful of fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 heaped teaspoon 5 spices (I make the mix myself with star anise, cloves, sichuan pepper, cinnamon and fennel seeds, that are not grounded except for the cinnamon)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
Directions
1/ Chop the butternut squash into 5 cm pieces.
2/ Chop the chillies, garlic, ginger and parsley into tiny pieces, mix with the spices, add the chopped onion and cook gently in a high-sided pan with a little olive oil for about 10 minutes.
3/ Add the butternut squash, stir well, and add the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and leave it cook for about 15 min with a lid on.
4/ Add the rice and give it a good stir. The butternut squash should start to mush up. Continue to simmer until the rice is cooked (about 10-12 more minute), then add the coconut milk, salt and pepper.
5/ Enjoy!
NB: You can freeze some of the soup for later.
