Kabocha Squash Curry Laksa Soup
When I first bought kabocha squash at the grocery, an old Malaysian woman at the checkout told me to make soup. I use a traditional Malaysian recipe for laksa curry soup to make this colorful, flavorful and bone warming soup. You might need to make a special trip to an Asian grocer to get the ingredients but it will be worth it. The red pepper adds color and the cabbage rounds things out. Thai basil, mint, and cilantro make a welcome addition at the end. This serves four, generously.
To get started, gather up the following ingredients.
2 large or 8 peeled baby shallots; 2/3 cup
1 tablespoon of fermented garlic or 6 garlic cloves
1 1/2 inch piece of peeled ginger, sliced
I large stalk of lemongrass (soft white stem only), sliced; 1/3 cup
Tip: I keep lemongrass in the fridge. You can chop the tender white portion of the lemongrass stalk and store it in a non-reactive oil, like avocado oil to have it around when you get a wild hair to cook this recipe.
2 teaspoons ground coriander
3 large dried red chillies
2 tablespoons sambal oelek (or other savoury chilli paste)
4 tablespoons avocado or vegetable oil
18 or so sprigs of fresh coriander, leaves and stems separated
5 cups vegetable stock
3 branches laksa leaves (aka kesum leaves), or curry leaves, or both
Tip: I store a bag of curry leaves (and kaffir lime leaves) in the freezer for use in recipes.
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 tablespoon of fish sauce or 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2 tablespoon caster sugar or fine white sugar
1 can (1 1/2 cups or 400 ml) coconut milk
1 small kabocha squash, peeled and cut into 2 inch cubes (about 4 cups)
3 cups of chopped green cabbage
1 red bell pepper cut into 2 x 1/2 inch pieces
2 cups of bite size cauliflower florets
3 cups bean sprouts
4 limes, halved for garnish
Put the first seven ingredients in a small food processor bowl. Add half the oil, and the roots and stems of the fresh coriander, and process to a semi-smooth paste.
Heat the remaining oil in a saucepan and fry the spice paste on medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring all the time – you want to cook it slowly without burning. Add the stock, laksa branches, curry powder, salt, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, milk, kabocha squash, and cabbage and gently simmer for 20 minutes, then taste and add salt if necessary. Add the red peppers and simmer for 8 minutes before adding the cauliflower and cooking for an additional 5 minutes.
This is kabocha squash. It looks a bit like an acorn squash. They are usually labelled so you won’t mix them up. They seem to be in all the shops these days.
Just before serving the soup, remove the soup from the heat and discard the laksa branches (the leaves can stay in the soup). Add half of the sprouts to the soup pot, stir and let it steep for one minute. Ladle the soup into large bowls and top each bowl with the remaining sprouts and shredded coriander leaves. Squeeze lime juice on top of each bowl and throw one half of squeezed lime into each bowl.
Enjoy!
You can serve this soup alone or add rice noodles for a dose of carbohydrates. We had this for dinner tonight with the miso dressed carrot and romaine salad and skipped the rice noodles. It was wonderful on a snowy spring evening.