Growing up, I never ate butternut squash, but my husband did. Two glorious years ago he introduced me to the oddly shaped veg. We became friends.
Today I have to share with you a wonderful soup and fish combo. It sounds weird, but looks and tastes delightful.
The soup
- Begin by peeling and large dicing your squash. Don’t kill yourself doing this. Squash is hard to cut and you will need ALL your body parts to finish cooking this.
- Season the squash with salt, pepper, olive oil, all spice, cumin and fresh thyme.
- Roast the squash at 450 degrees until soft.
- While the squash is roasting, cut two stalks of lemon grass and sautee them in a large pot with olive oil.
- Once the aroma is released, add one can of chicken broth. Reduce heat to low.
- When the squash is finished, add it to the pot with lemon grass and broth.
- Use your immersion blender and blend the soup.
The cod
- Salt and pepper the cod filets and saute.
- The underside of your fish should be cooked 30% of the way through.
- The face of the fish should be cooked the other 70%. This will give it the nice coloring.
- As the fish is cooking, take a small piece of celery and cut a flat edge on the curved portion. Place this in the bowl you are going to use. This is going to be the foundation to rest the fish on.
Once the fish is done, ladle the soup into the bowls. Place fish on top of celery, garnish with sprig of thyme.
Enjoy!
That looks super tasty! I love idea of using the lemon grass and then having the fish since the pairing so reminds me of thai food.
Hi Heather! This was my first venture with lemon grass and it was a success! It definitely added the zing I was looking for!
This sounds great, I am totally making it this week! One quick tip: when using butternut squash, I usually cut it in half lengthwise and roast in the oven for ~15-20 minutes or so. Then it’s super easy to cut the skin[rind?] off and slice without losing any appendages. Cheers!
Along the same lines, for a pureed soup like this, one could readily roast the squash completely as seed halves and then scoop the cooked squash out of the shell. Its a big time-saver, but at the cost of some caramelization and roasted flavor.
Thanks for the tip! I will have to try it next time. I am sure you could season the halves just as easily as I did the pieces!
thanks for the tip! I will try anything that will help me keep all my fingers!
Also, some grocery stores will cut your hard squash in half for you for free! Or at least Central Market does (god, how I wish I had the money to shop Central Market all the time).
Lacking an oven in my old apartment, I’d just microwave the squash for 30-second intervals until I could cut it. That worked too!
although i’m vegan & won’t be having cod, i’m REALLY glad to see recipes on here. i was hoping for that.
*looks very pretty, btw. ^_^
hi marie! a vegan friend of mine used fish alternative instead of the real deal! but i would have been just as content with the soup! hope you enjoy!
yeah the soup looks awesome & i have lemongrass in my yard nom
YUM! I love fish; I have no idea why people don’t make it at home more. The soup sounds so warm and cozy! We love lemon grass.
We have fish at least once a week. Always have even growing up. Never realized that it was uncommon.. 🙂
Instead of lemon grass, we use sauteed leeks and roast the seeds from the squash, and it gives it a nice, hearty flavor. Oh, and curry powder at the end. I find it really brings out the flavors of the other veggies.
So how big is a can? Because here in Australia we tend to get stock in 500mL-1L aseptic containers…