Roasted Kabocha Squash Soup

I love soup and could eat it every day of the week. It just never gets boring because of the endless combinations, and is comforting and yummy. I especially love soup during summer, go figure! Lately I’ve been craving two of my favorite soups, Butternut Soup and Tom Khai Gai, so I’m sure we’ll be having both of them soon. I now have a new soup to add to the favorites list, and I’m sure I will be making it a lot because it uses only a few ingredients and is super simple, yet it delivers tons of flavor and is good for you too. I call that a win-win situation. This recipe is an additional example of why the foodie community is so much fun. When I submitted my entry for the Marx Foods Game Sausage Edition Blogger Recipe Challenge for Baked Stuffed Kabocha Squash, Justin Marx (the CEO of Marx Foods and one of the writers of the Marx Foods blog) told me that he shared my love of kabocha and liked to make a kabocha soup. (I won second place in the Recipe Challenge, by the way! Wahoo! Thank you to everyone who voted!!)
After hearing that, I of course asked for the recipe and he was kind enough to tell me how he makes it (he didn’t actually have a recipe written down). Based on his explanation, I made the soup for dinner and served it with some Tibetan flatbread (which you’ll be hearing about later). It’s a good thing that the soup is so healthy, because by the end of dinner I think we were all completely stuffed. It was so good that I kept going back for “just a bit more.”

The soup is easy. Just cut your kabocha in half, clean out the insides, prick it with a fork, brush it with some olive oil, and then bake it face down in a baking dish in some water until it’s soft. Justin says you can add a couple of apples in there too, but I forgot to buy some at the store, so I didn’t this time around.
While it’s baking you caramelize some onions in a bit of olive oil.
After the squash comes out of the oven, you just scoop the soft flesh out of the skin,
and throw it into a food processor, along with the onions (and apples if you use some), some coconut milk and stock, and some salt and pepper, and process it until it’s smooth and creamy. (You could also throw everything into a pot and use an immersion blender.)
The soup is a beautiful golden yellowy-orange color. It is thick, smooth, buttery, cream, rich, and a bit sweet and savory all at the same time.

Roasted Kabocha Squash Soup
From Justin Marx as interpreted by LFM
Makes approximately 8 servings

1 medium to large size kabocha squash
1 Tbsp. + 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil, separated
2 small, or 1 large, yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 14-oz. can coconut milk (I used light coconut milk)
2 cups chicken stock (can use whatever kind of stock you prefer)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Cut kabocha in half, scoop out seeds and stringy insides, then prick flesh with a fork. Brush 1 tablespoon of olive oil on flesh and set halves face down in baking sheet in approximately 1/2 inch of water. Bake for about 45 minutes until flesh is soft.

3. While kabocha is baking, caramelize onions in 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil.

4. After kabocha is finished cooking, scoop flesh out of skin.

5. In a food processor, add kabocha, onions, coconut milk, stock, salt, and pepper and process until smooth. Serve.

*I suggest adding half of the coconut milk and half of the stock and then tasting it. Depending on your tastes, you may want to add all of the coconut milk, or you may want to add more stock. Also, if the soup is too thick, add additional stock until it reaches the consistency you desire.

* Don’t forget! You have until this Friday, June 19, 2009, 10:00 PM PST to enter to win a set of my favorite measuring spoons! (Go here for instructions on how to enter).

Coming Next: Tibetan Flatbread, the Perfect Soup Dunking Bread

Tagged as: chicken stock, coconut milk, kabocha squash, olive oil, yellow onion