Butternut Soup
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Aperçu
Butternut soup is butternut squash cooked down and blended smooth, thick, sweet, deep orange, and eaten across a wide stretch of Africa as well as far beyond it. Its African presence is genuine and spread out. It appears in North African cooking and in southern Africa, particularly in Mozambique and Namibia, and it is a fixture of South African winter cooking. That distribution reflects the crop rather than a single tradition: butternut grows well across a range of African climates and is cheap and widely available. What varies is the seasoning, and it splits roughly along regional lines. Northern versions lean towards cumin, coriander and warm spice. Southern African versions more often use curry powder, ginger and a little sugar, and finish with cream. Chilli appears in both. The squash does most of the work. Roasting rather than boiling it concentrates the sugars and deepens the flavour considerably, at the cost of extra time. **Country left blank deliberately**, the dish is documented across several African cuisines and attributing it to one would be a guess.
Note de Patrimoine AFN
Butternut squash soup is documented in North African cuisine and in southern Africa, including Mozambique and Namibia, reflecting the crop's wide cultivation rather than a single national tradition.
Ingrédients
Les mentions alimentaires sont fournies par les contributeurs à titre indicatif. Elles ne sont pas vérifiées par AFN et dépendent des produits que vous achetez. En cas d’allergie grave, vérifiez vous-même chaque ingrédient. Cuisine, allergies et votre propre jugement
Préparation
- 1
Peel and pip the butternuts, and cut it into about 5cm square chunks.
- 2
Peel and chop the onions quite finely.
- 3
Chop the garlic very finely, or push through a garlic press.
- 4
Halve the Jalapeno pepper or green chillies and scrape out all the pips. Chop the green flesh very finely.
- 5
Put the onions, garlic and chillies into the melted butter in a saucepan on a moderate heat and cook until the onions are soft and transparent. Add the lemon juice and chicken stock and stir until well mixed.
- 6
Add the water and the cubes of butternut, and simmer until the soup is thick and all the ingredients are well blended together, about 1 hour.
- 7
Liquidise with a Bamix or a food processer.
- 8
Serve hot.
- 9
Swirl a tablespoon or two of fresh cream into the centre of each bowl of soup just before serving.
Notes de l’Africook
Notes personnelles de Nympha Nzeribe- Roast the squash rather than boiling it. It concentrates the sugars and the difference is substantial.
- Keep some stock back. It is easy to thin a thick soup and tedious to thicken a watery one.
- Add cream at the end and off the heat so it does not split.
- A little acid, lemon or a splash of vinegar, lifts the sweetness and stops it cloying.
Questions fréquentes
Should I roast or boil the squash?
Roast it if you have the time. Boiling waterlogs the flesh and dilutes the flavour; roasting drives off moisture and caramelises the natural sugars, which gives a noticeably deeper and sweeter soup. Boiling is faster and perfectly acceptable on a weeknight.
What spices are traditional?
It depends where. North African versions tend towards cumin and coriander; southern African versions more often use curry powder and ginger, sometimes with a little sugar and cream to finish. Both are traditional in their own regions, and chilli appears widely in both.
Why is no country listed for this recipe?
Because it is genuinely eaten across several African cuisines, North African, Mozambican, Namibian and South African among them, and picking one would be inventing a specificity the dish does not have. Where the origin is broad, the honest answer is to say so.
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