Yellow summer squash is one of those vegetables that I think is unappreciated because of its outstanding abundance and versatility. It's great in stir fry, eggs, and casseroles but is often relegated to being a supporting player instead of the star of the show. This soup stars yellow squash and uses sweet corn to complement the sweetness of the squash and a touch of cumin and curry for warmth.
Ingredients
Serves 6-8
- 4 yellow summer squash, chopped up
- kernels from 2 ears of corn
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbs vegetable oil
- 1 tbs crystallized ginger, minced
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 1/4 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tbs kosher salt
- 2-3 cups of water
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1-2 jalapeno peppers, minced
- Heat a large pot or dutch oven over medium high heat.
- Peel and slice the onion. Add it to the pot so it can start to caramelize while you prepare the other vegetables. Stir only occasionally to allow the onions to brown nicely. Give it a sprinkle of salt.
- Slice the garlic, cut the kernels off the corn, and chop up the squash. This soup will be pureed so you don't have to worry too much about cutting things into beautiful equal pieces. Smaller pieces will give you more surface area for browning which leads to deeper flavors and more of that umami richness. But don't over think it.
- When the onion has browned nicely, stir in the garlic and let that cook for a minute on its own. Add the ginger, cumin, black pepper, and curry powder. Stir and let the spices cook with the aromatics for about a minute before moving to the next step.
- Turn the heat up to high and add the squash and corn. Both of these vegetables will give off a substantial amount of liquid and you want to cook that down as quickly as possible to promote browning.
- Cook for about 20-30 minutes, stirring as needed to caramelize the vegetables evenly, but don't worry if they don't pick up a lot of color in this process. You may need to turn the heat down depending on your stove. Don't be tempted to rush here. If you have the time to go lower and slower with stewing these vegetables it will yield deeper and richer flavors for your soup.
- Add 2 cups of water and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5-10 minutes. This will help blend all of the flavors together. If you weren't going to puree the soup you would need to cook in this phase for longer, but the blender does a lot of the work of blending the flavors.
- Puree the soup in a blender. You may need to add more water here to achieve the desired consistency.
- If you are like my father-in-law and you like your soup really really hot you can put it back in the pot and heat it up again at this point. If you have somehow added too much water you can gently cook the soup down to thicken it again, too.
- Taste your soup. You can add more salt here or more spices if you like. I purposely didn't put a lot of spices because I wanted the squashiness to be the dominant flavor, but if you prefer a more heavily spiced soup I can understand that.
- Ladle in to bowls and garnish with a dash of cumin, a dollop of sour cream and minced jalapeno (according to your tolerance for hot peppers).
Enjoy
-Matt
