Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup with Vadouvan

How can it be Christmas without cats

I don’t know what happened to November. Here we are, more than halfway through December. We were late to the holiday decorating and seasonal affect disorder, both of which are now well advanced.

Jewish Husband LOVES Christmas, and always wants a tree. This year, after touring a few local nurseries agape at the tree prices, Husband wanted a smaller tree. I got the idea that a small tree would look best elevated somehow, so useful Husband built a wooden box that raised it up a little over a foot off the ground. The box is small enough to be concealed by the tree skirt. What really sold me on the smaller tree/box combination is that I no longer have to crawl like a commando to water the thing.

Tree on a box…it took me well over three decades of adulthood to figure this out

With the passing of Reilly last month we sadly we have no remaining cats this year to climb the tree, search and destroy ornaments, or, in the years they were really inspired, knock the thing over. I think this is the first Christmas except one in my adult life where I will not listen for the CRASH-tinkle-tinkle coming from the living room. One Christmas Eve, before I went to bed, I hung up treats, toys, and catnip in their little stockings. I woke up before Husband and the Decavore and went downstairs to discover that Schnitzel and Mrs. Nesbit had broken into their stockings and got them down from the mantel. Schnitzel was darting around the room playing with his toy mouse. I spotted Mrs. Nesbit sacked out under the tree, surrounded by an exploded bag of catnip, zooted af and staring at the twinkling lights. She had a full-blown case of the munchies and was gobbling as many treats as she could swallow. I only had myself to blame.

I rather like the poor grainy quality of these images... makes it look like a crime scene, which of course it is

I am only an occasional soup eater, but Husband loves soup. I always cringe when he brings home storebought soups, since they are expensive and not very good. I cannot however keep up with his soup consumption this time of year. I do like to make this soup for dinner often in the winter. This is a basic butternut squash and carrot soup made special with vadouvan, which is an underused and underappreciated type of curry. Vadouvan is French in origin, believed to have come from Pondicherry (now Puducherry), which was a French colony in the South of India. Much in the way the British developed milder curries to accomodate their European palates, so too did the French, and vadouvan is deeply flavorful without being too peppery. Most people think of the British as the apex colonizers, but recently I learned that the French did not fully pack up and foutre le camp from Puducherry until 1962! Incroyable.

You can make your own vadovan, which I have done in the past. It’s not hard, and, if you find a pretty jar, it can make a great small holiday gift to another home cook. You can find a lot of versions online. The recipe below comes from Epicurious.

If you don’t want to make it yourself, I recommend Kalustyan’s Vadouvan mix, which you can get via mail order.

Kalustyan’s spice mix comes in a pouch. I transferred it to a jar

Vadouvan spice mix

Ingredients

2 pounds onions, roughly chopped
1 pound shallots, halved
12 garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
3/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp red-pepper flakes
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Pulse onions in a food processor until very coarsely chopped and transfer to a bowl. Repeat with shallots, then garlic.

Heat oil in a deep heavy skillet over high heat and cook onions, shallots, and garlic (stir often) until golden and browned in spots.

Grind fenugreek seeds (in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle). Add to onion mixture along with remaining ingredients, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper, and toss until blended.

Line a sheet pan with parchment-paper. Spread mixture thinly and evenly on the sheet pan. Bake, stirring occasionally, until well browned and barely moist, about an hour and a half.

Butternut Squash Carrot Soup with Vadouvan

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash, peeled and sliced into 1 inch chunks
olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 large carrots, sliced into 1/2 inch chunks
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
salt and white pepper
2 tsps of vadouvan (more or less to taste)
1/3 cup of dry white wine
2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock if you are vegetarian (use more if you want thinner soup)
1/4 cup of heavy cream (or more or less to taste- you can skip this, or use a dairy alternative, if you are vegan)

Instructions

Peel and slice vegetables. If you have time, I recommend tossing the carrots and sqush with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in the oven at 400 degrees until they develop some color, but if you are making this coming home from work, you can skip this step at it will still be delicious)

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a dutch oven or other deep pot and add onions. Season onions with about 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook on medium heat until soft. Add garlic and cook until garlic becomes fragrant.

Add squash, carrot, and vadouvan, a little more salt, and white pepper, and cook on medium heat until the vegetables are soft and start to take on some color.

Add wine and cook until it reduces to half.

Add stock and then cover and cook on low heat until vegetables are completely soft.

You can either transfer contents of the pot to a blender or use an immersion blender and blend until smooth.

If you used a blender, add blended mix back to the pot and keep heat to low.

Check for seasoning, and add more salt, pepper or vadouvan. Depending on your stock your soup may be too salty. If the soup is too salty, you can add a peeled potato to cook in the mix for a while to absorb some of the salt.

Add cream and cook on low until fully heated.

Serves 4.