It’s so funny that hot spicy food tends to originate from warmer climates and yet, for me at least, a hot spicy curry or a lovely rich chilli con carne is a real winter warmer.  This lovely rich soup is certainly a go to, warm your cockles, just come in from a snowy dog walk kind of a meal soup to me.

I haven’t given weights below as vegetables tend not to come in uniform weight portions – so don’t stress about it too much.  I’ve used black pepper for seasoning but only because I didn’t find the white pepper until after I had made it and there is bound to be a little spec of black pepper that shows up in the photograph!  I usually use white pepper though – about the same amount.

I’ve used Thai Red Curry Paste because I had half a jar that needed to be used up but more often than not, I use a couple of tablespoons of madras curry powder or garam masala.  It can be quite spicy, which is how I like it but for those who would prefer it calmed down a little, serve it with a big dollop of coconut yoghurt in the middle.  I use Rachel’s Coconut Yoghurt as it doesn’t have a very sweet taste but that’s a personal taste thing.

I’ve also used chicken stock – I just prefer the taste but obviously if you want to make this a vegetarian dish, vegetable stock would be fine.  I make and freeze a lot of stock so I generally use that but if you are using stock cubes, I’d use two dissolved in hot water.

Ingredients  

2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil

1 medium sized butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and diced

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

1 large red onion, roughly chopped

1 small swede, peeled and diced

2 pints chicken stock

1 tablespoon red thai curry paste

Large builders mug of red lentils (I think that’s what Americans call 2 cups!)

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tin coconut milk

1.  Sweat the onion until soft in the oil in a large lidded saucepan (I use a cast iron casserole)

2.  Add in the rest of the vegetables and stir until well mixed

3.  Add the chicken stock, lentils, curry paste and black pepper and stir through again

4.  Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and leave to simmer for 30 minutes

5.  Stir through the coconut milk, bring back to a simmer and cook for another 5 minutes

6.  Blend with a stick blender until smooth and serve!