Curried Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe is a special request for my friend Shanny P. and it is timely because my in-laws are coming back from Florida and are stopping in for lunch. Might as well try to make one healthy meal today (which is Superbowl Sunday) before the on-slaught of the pizza, wings and beer begins!

As usual in the winter, I am starting by roasting my main vegetable ingredient - butternut squash. The roasting isn't absolutely essential to the soup - you could just toss everything in a slow cooker and leave it for the day - but I like the depth of flavour that roasting imparts on the vegetables resulting from the caramelization that occurs.  Today I have the time, so I am roasting first.  The other thing I try to do with my soups is avoid the addition of milk or cream if at all possible.  If I add any, I do right at the end to impart an added creaminess but I generally find that I want to taste the vegetables in my soup, not dairy.

Just as an aside - as I am prone to asides when it comes to cooking - I am always talking about caramelization on vegetables, so I thought I`d expand on that term a little for this post. The term translates roughly in French to ``burt sugar``.  In the most simple terms, caramelization is the process of turning sugar brown through the application of heat and the evaporation of water. All meat and vegetables contain some sugar and water. So when heat is applied to the surface of these sugar containing items, it causes a chemical reaction that induces changes to the surface compounds of the molecules involved, resulting in the lovely brown colour and caramely taste that comes from `browning` food.  I won`t even attempt to get any further into the complexities of the various chemical reactions that occur but it involves levels of fructose and glucose, sucrose inversion, intramolecular bonding and polymar formations....blah blah blah....makes my head spin.

Diets like Atkins or those that talk about the glycemic index generally tell to you avoid vegetables that are high in natural sugars, but I guess I am more of the view that any kind of vegetable eaten, higher in sugars or not, is better than no vegetable consumed at all. Everything in moderation.

Carrots have a very higher natural sugar content -  thus are hated by Dr. Atkins - yet they are so high in vitamin A and carotinoids, which helps protect against vision loss and cancers, so why would you not eat them. Beets contain the highest levels of sugar but are also high in folate, potassium and fibre - and taste amazing roasted.  Other vegetables high in natural sugars are corn, white potatoes (not sweet potatoes surprisingly), plaintains, turnip, my beloved parsnips and, of course, butternut squash - all vegetables that caramelize beautifully and benefit from roasting.

Anyway, this post is about Butternut Squash soup, so here is my recipe:

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter
3 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped onion 

1 tsp pureed ginger

1 tablespoon pureed garlic

2-3 tablespoons curry powder (I used 3 tbsp) 

6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (or one recipe Overnight Chicken Stock)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss squash with olive oil, salt and pepper and place on a large rimmed baking sheet. Roast until tender, about 1 hour. Cool slightly.

In a large stock or soup pot, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrots, and sauté 5 minutes. Add curry powder; stir 2 minutes. Add stock and squash and bring to boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered 45-60 minutes. Puree with an immersion blender or, working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. For increased smoothness, pass soup through a fine sieve.  Return soup to pot. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed.

Divide soup among bowls. Drizzle with sour cream; sprinkle with cilantro.  Serve. Eat.  Enjoy.