Peanutty inspiration

After the NY Times link recipe, Kat reminded me of this soup recipe I have which in winter is one of my favourites. It's from Alison Holst who is NZ's answer to America's Julia Child and Britain's Delia Smith - a kitchen doyenne, if you will - and my go-to cookbook author when I'm in doubt about something, and is just lovely. It calls for kumara which is a NZ sweet potato that I'm not sure if you can get elsewhere. I'd substitute golden sweet potato in preference but if you can't find that either then just ordinary orange sweet potato would be fine. Don't put in more sweet potato than the recipe calls for though, or it will be too sweet and will overpower the other flavours.

Kumara, Pumpkin and Peanut Soup
Serves 4-6

1 large onion
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tbsp butter or oil
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp freshly ground coriander seed
1/2 tsp chilli powder, or minced chilli (or more/less to taste)
1 fairly large kumara/sweet potato (about 250g), peeled and chopped into 1 cm cubes
250g pumpkin, peeled and chopped into 1cm cubes
4 cups stock (or water with stock cube added)
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp peanut butter (I only ever use chunky because I don't believe in smooth peanut butter, but if you're one of those odd lovers of smooth peanut butter then by all means use that instead)

Cook onion and garlic in butter/oil on low heat until onion is transparent. Add spices and stir over moderate heat for about a minute. Add kumara and pumpkin to pot with stock and bring to a boil. Simmer about 15 mins or until vege are tender. Add salt then peanut butter (too much peanut butter tends to overpower the other flavours).
Puree the soup, then taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.
Serve topping with a swirl of yoghurt or coconut cream, or with a few finely chopped roasted peanuts.

A deliciously soothing winter warmer!

(P.S: if you are interested - http://www.kumara.co.nz/about.shtml)