The Scroobious Chef: How to make butternut soup
1. Plan to make pumpkin soup. Send out an invitation that prominently features the words "pumpkin soup". Borrow an enormous pot for the express purpose of boiling pumpkins in. Scour the interweb for pumpkin soup recipes. Decide the recipes all suck*, I'll just make it up. Plan recipe in head.
2. Discover that no one actually eats pumpkins, they just cut them up to stick candles in, and Halloween was last week, so requests for pumpkins at Tesco are met with impolite laughter.
3. Decide to make butternut soup instead. Look for bags of diced butternut, because I'm not crazy. Find two pathetically tiny packets of diced butternut and sweet potato. Resign myself to doing it the oldfashioned way. Grab four butternuts. Ponder what else needs to go in this soup. Buy sour cream and cashews. Go home.
4. Realise forgot to buy onions. Panic. Discover onions in fridge. Stop panicking.
5. Check clock. Realise I'm going to still be cooking when guests arrive, so I'd better change into party clothes first. Don cute suede miniskirt. Look for apron. Beloved has hidden apron**. Resign myself to being very, very careful not to mess up suede skirt. Get cooking.
6. Chuck some butter in enormous pot. Whizz some onions in wonderful magic food chopping device. Chuck onions in butter over low, low heat. Instruct onions to look after themselves while I deal with the butternut. Boil some water.
7. Check instructions on butternut label for helpful tips on chopping. Find that cooking instructions, for either oven or microwave cooking, start with "butternut must be chopped into 2cm cubes".
8. Spend half an hour fighting with one damn butternut. Realise this is not a workable method. Chuck that first butternut in the pot, add hot water and stock, turn on oven, chop remaining three butternuts in half. Chuck five butternut halves in oven, stick one in microwave (that being all that will fit in small microwave). Proceed as follows: nuke butternut for 5 minutes, remove, take next butternut half from oven and nuke, skin first butternut while burning fingers and swearing, dice and chuck in pot, remove, etc. Repeat until last two butternut halves are removed from oven and by this stage don't need any nuking. Congratulate self on cunning plan which has only taken, ooh, another half an hour?
9. While 8 is still in progress, greet guests who are arriving on time, the bastards***, and are looking quizzically at state of kitchen. Apologise for glaring absence of promised gluhwein or prepared snacks. Gratefully accept offers of help and ply them with alcohol, or rather, get them to ply each other with alcohol because I'm still busy with damn butternut.
10. Soup is looking disgusting. Worry that this might be a repeat of the Surprising Purple Cabbage Soup**** experience.
11. Whizz coriander seeds and cloves in magic device. Chuck into pot.
12. Chuck cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and black pepper into pot. Colour worse and worse.
13. Whizz cashews in magic device. Chuck into pot. Colour improves! Turn down heat.
14. Chuck two tubs of sour cream and a bunch of milk***** into pot. Colour now quite lovely.
15. Realise I forgot the damn bay leaves. Send horticulturally challenged guest out to get bay leaves, with strictly non-botanical instructions ("In the pot, one of three pots, on concrete strip, it doesn't have flowers in, it only has bay treelets****** and thyme"). Success! He brings bay leaves, saying proudly "this isn't thyme". Correct. Well done.
16. Run out of stuff to chuck in pot. Stir.
17. Soup starts to get into the Guy Fawkes spirit and explodes. It starts with friendly little "plops" but soon is attacking me with great viciousness. Seriously. I have big red spots on my hands today. Also, there is butternut soup on the ceiling. And — inevitably — on my cute suede miniskirt.
18. Try to remove soup from heat, but that requires getting close to it, and it's still attacking me. Finally activate brain, quell the Butternut Beast with lid on pot. Aha! Safety.
19. Make gluhwein. Drink gluhwein. Wait for soup's savage breast to be soothed.
20. Fearfully check soup. Looks soupy. Chuck in some parmesan. Serve.
21. Best soup EVER.
22. Try to persuade Beloved to pay for drycleaning my miniskirt. Fail dismally.
Feel free to adapt this recipe as you see fit. Using diced butternut, for instance, is highly to be recommended. But don't leave out the cashews. They're the special secret ingredient that makes all the difference.
_____
* For one thing, they were all weird "Thai curry pumpkin" or "pumpkin and mussel" type recipes, not basic pumpkin; for another, none of them specified how many servings they made, when what I most wanted to know was how much pumpkin I needed to feed a party; and finally, none of them had any useful information on how to actually prepare the pumpkin. They all started with "500g of diced pumpkin" or — my personal favourite — "15oz can of pumpkin". A can of pumpkin? While I appreciate that this is a fabulous idea, I've never in my life seen such a thing. Not the most useful, then.
** Beloved of course denies doing any such thing, but I present to you two pieces of incontrovertible evidence. One: apron used to live on back of kitchen door. It's not there now. Two: Beloved has habit of finding new homes for things that he does not, himself, use very often, on grounds that they'd be more out of the way somewhere else. He then forgets where he put them or, indeed, that such a thing ever existed. "What apron?" indeed.
*** This is the problem with inviting South Africans and Germans. English guests are always properly late (at least two hours). But the forruners, we're a punctual lot. (That whole "Africa time" thing? Is a total lie.)
**** Tasted great, looked bizarre. Everyone refused to eat it. It turned navy blue when kept in the fridge, then reverted to purple on reheating. Fascinating stuff.
***** Technical term.
****** Another technical term.
24 comments:
The cashews Difference - does it extend beyond soup color improvement?
And for the record I much prefer 'colour' but my using same seems pretentious at best. Kind of like a long-ago friend (a Wisconsin native), fond of saying 'petrol' with a laughable British accent instead of 'gas' with his natural midwestern twang. So I suffer with the first-learned and regionally acceptable alternative.
tjypcf: I can't work under these conditions.
Oh yes, Jam, it certainly does. It improves the texture and adds a certain indefinable something to the flavour - you probably wouldn't identify it as cashew, you probably wouldn't taste a cashew-free soup and think "damn, they forgot the nuts", but it's magic. Trust me.
PS: I sympathise on the "color/colour" problem. But my personal inclination is always to go for the pretentious, if that takes my fancy. Hence, I never say arse, always ass. Because arse just sounds horrid to my ears. Luckily, it's a word that I never really say in a serious context, so I'm able to insert my silly Yankee flavour unchallenged.
Phewwwww. That was one hectic soup! But it turned out well, didn't it?
I add cashew nuts to stir fry too. I roll 'em in a tea towel, bash it a couple o' times with the rolling pin...and add to the stir fry.
Sadly, I'm allergic to cashews. Is there another nut that could be substituted?
Guyana-Gyal, I was trying to figure out how I would've done it without my magic device. Your way sounds quite therapeutic.
Omar, you're messing with me. Allergic to cashews but not other nuts? Anyway, try almonds. The effect will be slightly different but also delicious.
Demo, you're messing with me even more. Where were the scantily clad lads? Now I feel cheated.
Don't almonds smell like cyanide? I've always been wary of almonds for this reason.
Don't let this put you off using almonds, though, Omar. Cyanide causes skin irritation, nausea and death, while almonds merely leave a nutty taste in the mouth.
***
ztgdiom n. - blissful ignorance.
---X
Indeed, just cashews. It's certainly not fatal like some people's peanut allergies. You know what it feels like when your throat itches? And nothing that you can do really makes it feel better? It's like that, except instead of just in the throat, the entire inside of my mouth also itches. It's not really as fun as it sounds.
Rumor has it, pistachios would bother me also, I've never tried them.
Sounds like my friend strawberryfrog's recently discovered allergy to figs. Recently discovered, because only when I was feeding him lunch did he realise that not everybody's mouth itched when eating figs. Hm.
X, almonds do indeed contain tiny amounts of cyanide - at least, bitter almonds do, as do cherries, apricots and apple seeds. But I bet you don't turn cherries down, now do you. ;-)
horticulturally challenged, eh?
I'd be offended if it weren't so incontrovertibly true.
And truth, as the lawyers say, is an absolute defence in matters of libel. No offence intended. I was entertained. And you did know the difference between bay and thyme, after all.
Lots of pumpkin related goodies at the party I went to. But then the host was American so probably had them flown over especially. The only culinary debauchery came when I, for some reason, decide to take over the gluhwein production. "Hmm.. I reckon a little brandy would add an extra something" suggests my evil assisant. Well you can see where this is going - the brandy turns to jamaicam rum when the brandy runs out and the rum turns into some god awefull stuff the hosts must have picked up on some exotic holiday. By the end of the evening we are drinking basically a tepid cocktail of whatever spirits we can find in the house with a dash of wine. One poor lady gets so smashed we have call an ambulance.
Your soup sound great though I will definely try that recipy.
gkhwud: The furry stuff you get on your tongue after a night of excessive exuberance.
Oh, so *that's* what you call that furry tongue feeling...
Someone did actually mention to me that brandy could be added to good effect. They didn't mention the dire consequences. Note to self: brandy to be added *only* if pot is carefully guarded.
Yeah in retrospect I think the trick is not to add too much and never ever replace brandy with - whatever spirits you can lay your hands on - whatever evil assistants tell you.
You've never seen a can of pumpkin? I don't know if I can move to England now, if canned pumpkin is not to be seen there. Chocolate-chip pumpkin cookies are a staple in our house.
http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/libbys/pure.aspx
Not only have I never seen a can of pumpkin, nobody I asked about it had ever heard of such a thing. I'm quite jealous now. Those sound like amazing cookies. But don't let that put you off coming to London - while this great city is lacking a lot of things, most of which involve decent food, there are compensations.
Seriously, now you've got me drooling over fantasy cookies. Problem...
Canned pumpkin? My goodness.
LIBBY'S 100% Pure Pumpkin
Ingredients: Pumpkin.
Thanks for the clarification, Libby.
---X
bqchsm n. - ancient martial art practised by butchers.
I don't think I've ever gotten 20 comments before. And this is a post about soup. Wow. Who knew soup would push your buttons like this?
Cate, believe me, the thought had crossed my mind. Let's just say, if you're feeling Santa Claus-y...
Demo, I grew up despising pumpkin, butternut and all kinds of squash. I still hate gem squash. I'm still pretty suspicious of butternut, for that matter. But I've become really very fond of pumpkin/butternut soup. Yummy. And today, I actually had pumpkin for dessert. Not pumpkin pie (which I've never had but fondly imagine as being utterly delicious), nothing like that - just a mound of sweetened pumpkin, with cream. It was wonderful.
Oh I am laughing! I have a tupperware container filled with homemade pumpkin puree that's just been sitting there for over a month. I love all things pumpkin but I'm too darn lazy to go the extra mile and make the pie.
Damn. I nick off to navel-gaze for a few days, and I miss out on the soupalooza. Serves me right.
Anyway, I'm baaack... and now I have a hankering for roast pumpkin. Real pumpkin - not this so called '100%' pumpkin-in-a-can. Pfft to that.
So pumpkin pie is sweet? Like a dessert? Funny, I always imagined it would be savoury. Never even seen it in Australia.
Oh, and Anne - after a month in the fridge I think your puree might give you an unexpected bonus: pumpkin and mushroom pie, anyone?
nngva: a nervous sound made involuntarily in the back of your throat when you realise you're being watched by twelve steely-eyed kangaroos.
Or, indeed, the nervous sound made when you realise your pumpkin puree has acquired a certain fungal je ne sais quoi... (except you do sais quoi, of course, it's fungus).
Anne, make the pie. I need some vicarious pie enjoyment here. Like Prowl, I grew up in a land where pumpkin pie was completely unheard of (except in 'Merkin movies, of course). Same in London, for that matter.
Or you could feel inspired by my genius (er...) recipe to make soup. Soup I say! But for pumpkin soup, I recommend using oranges for extra flavour, not cashew. Not sure if the cream will work, in that case. Find out and report back.
All through this I found the thoughts of Pumpkin Soup caused a slight nngva to form in my throat. I *do* like pumpkin pie, and while soup seems exotic and risky from a palate-pleasing perspective I'd certainly try some. For some reason, thinking about "using oranges for extra flavour"* erases my doubts.
* Pleased to use the 'our' spelling via quotation, I am.
Yep, my dad makes a killer pumpkin/orange soup. In fact it was that soup that first convinced me pumpkin was not a completely worthless vegetable. (Never having had the pie, you see.)
Bonus Scroobious points for using a word verification as an actual word!
Kudos to ThePurpleOwl for nailing the "word"-sound connection. Reminded me of The Last Continent: The Senior Wrangler often made a similar noise when struck ...er, speechless by something Mrs. Whitlow said or did.
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