Butternut Soup
London, United Kingdom · View all recipes
Overview
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.
AFN Heritage Note
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.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 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.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from 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.
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