A Spicy Squash Soup with lotus root and chili oil
Okay...this was more for drama than for taste:) But it did taste good!
First chop your perfectly ripe Butternut Squash and remove the seeds and fibrous innards.
First chop your perfectly ripe Butternut Squash and remove the seeds and fibrous innards.
a fall vegetable if--there ever was one
Also peel and chop two sweet potatoes, one regular potato, an apple, an onion and a little bit of carrot.
Saute the onion and carrot in one Tbs. of olive oil.
Saute the onion and carrot in one Tbs. of olive oil.
When the onions are soft, add the rest of your chopped vegetables and the apple.
Next, make some stock using a boullion cube (homemade works too) and add to the vegetables with some salt and pepper. Simmer on medium high.
While the vegetables are cooking, you can blanch some thin slices of lotus root (I bought mine pre-sliced) in some boiling water for about two minutes.
When all the vegetables in your soup are soft, add a Tbs of Korean hot chili paste (gochujang). If you do not have gochujang, a pinch of cayenne will do the trick. Next, puree the soup (if you have a hand blender), or do your best to mash it to a fine consistency if you only possess a whisk. Ladle some into a cup or bowl, top with a lotus round and drizzle a little chili oil into the holes--as you can see, hitting the holes is a challenge. Garnish with some cilantro (that you bought at the foreign market in Itaewon).
While the lotus root is attempting to be oh so zen, another nice topper is plain yogurt with cilantro and a drizzle of chili oil.
RSS Feed