Ginger, butternut, chilli and coconut soup with crunchy seeds and crispy chickpea croutons

It's soup season!

It’s been bitterly cold this last week. The kind of cold that makes you wince as you step out of the house in the morning to the point where you might expect to strap on your skis and whoosh down a slope. Except of course you’re in London, or thereabouts and doing the nursery run or commuting to work and there are no skis in sight. Of course this was also the week our boiler decided to break, it’s like they just know when we will need them the most? Anyway, all of this to say it is most definitely soup season. There’s just nothing as lovely and comforting as a bowl of soup although I have to tell you I am a complete and utter soup snob.

I kind of hate all soup you can buy in the shops, even the supposedly really nice ones, they just taste a bit blah to me. I did once find quite a nice chicken one in one of the well known supermarkets which was actually very nice but then I forgot which one it was and never found it again. So yes, there is it out in the open I’m a soup snob. I think it’s that they are often they are bland, or weirdly sweet. Their labels hold such promise of deliciousness but somehow they nearly always fall flat.

So it is lucky for me, lucky for us all! that soups are so gorgeously easy to make at home. And a soup you make at home will never let you down. It’s never going to be bland or blah. It’s the perfect thing to make when you need warming, easy sustenance, or when you need to clear out the fridge, or indeed when you don’t have much in the fridge - for I assure you more often than not you will have what you need to make a delicious soup. One of the best I’ve ever made at home was little gem lettuce, mint and peas from the freezer. I know? Lettuce in a soup? It needed using up and I thought why not, life is for living…let me see and I honestly can’t tell you how good it was. I will recreate it and write it down for you now I remember. So my point is, you are never far from a good soup and that is a very comforting thing.

I’ve used butternut squash here but you can use any squash or pumpkin you find. Butternut has a lovely sweetness to it which is delicious of course but does need balancing out with good seasoning and also works so well with the heat from the chilli and the fire from the ginger. And the mellow creaminess of the coconut is the perfect backdrop. This is a soup to warm the cockles.

When you’re cold or indeed feeling coldy, ginger and chilli are hard to beat. Before I had children I rarely got ill, and now I feel as though rarely a week goes by when I don’t catch some sort of gruesome sniffle from one of my children. Little wonder as my youngest toddler, just this morning came up to me and asked for my sleeve as her nose was running. Imagine? And somehow I don’t mind, or I mean of course I do but not in the way I most definitely would if it was anyone else. But it does mean soups like this one are on heavy rotation and I always have a freezer stocked with ginger.

Did you know that ginger stores perfectly in the freezer? I just store it whole, unpeeled, just as it is and then when I need some I grate it from frozen - it works perfectly. While we are on the subject of ginger, something else I’ve taken to doing which I highly recommend is making these buzzy little ice cubes. Toss together the juice of 5 lemons, 2 inch piece of ginger, 2 tbsp ground turmeric, 1 cup of water into a blender and blitz until combined. Pour mixture into a small ice cube tray and place in freezer. Pop one out when needed and place in mug with 1 tablespoons of honey and fill with hot water. Stir to combine and allow the cube to melt. So good at keeping lurgies at bay.

Anyway I digress let’s talk about the matter in hand: this delicious soup, as it really is so good. I love it with crispy crunchy chickpeas but of course it’s great with any kind of crouton you like. Garlic bread croutons (see Notes) are a new favourite of mine, pesto croutons, or keep it simple with some toast for dunking. However you do it I don’t mind but please include something crunchy to go with your soup. Remember it’s all about texture and contrast for something to be truly delicious.

Serves 2 as a main unless you are very light eaters in which case it could serve 4 but I would be hungry