Curry winter squash soup

1. Recipe by: caprial cafe" (chef caprial pence) tv notes 94/09/03 in hot pan, add olive oil, add onions.
2. After a few seconds add shallots, add ginger and garlic, saute breifly till you can smell the aroma.
3. Then add the mirin wine (note: this is an asian wine which is slightly sweet, you could use any sweet cooking wine you want to or a dessert wine.
4. Also a dry white wine could be used adding alittle brown sugar to sweeten some).
5. Cook to reduce about by half.
6. While it is cooking peel and dice the squash (acorn, or any squash would be good, hubbard is especially nice, also pumpkin) ( can mix differant kinds of squash if desired ) (acorn squash is hard to peel, you could split and remove seeds, roast in 400" oven till soft and scoop out the pulp for the soup).
7. Add the diced squash to the pan with onions and shallots.
8. Add the chicken stock (if you want to keep this vegetarian, you could use a vegetable stock) or you could use water, but flavor wouldn"t be as nice.
9. Add coconut milk, canned or frozen, if separated upon opening could stir, or just add the way it is) (the coconut milk adds a demension of flavor to this soup).
10. Stiri. Cook until squash is tender, if wanting to save time squash could be diced finer, larger cuts of squash take longer to cook.
11. When squash is tender, add spices.
12. (dry saute the curry powder in small skillet, a few minutes, by roasting the curry powder it removes the sandy texture in your mouth and increases the flavor).
13. Add to soup, along with chili powder.
14. Using a hand held mixer (like braun) to mix the soup, breaking up some of the squash.
15. (this is safer then using the blender, as hot liquid could spallter you).
16. After you could strain if a smooth mixture is needed.
17. This is a hearty, thick soup.
18. Good with shrimps or scallops, try grilling the scallops and put it on top. Garnishi with roasted acorn seeds or chili powder.