I live in Northern Ireland and to date, we don’t have the asian fast food chain ITSU here. I only discovered it this summer during a stay in London and was so taken with the fresh, healthy style of food on offer that I bought one of the cookbooks as soon as I returned home and have really enjoyed trying out the recipes.

This soup is from the ITSU cookbook and helped me make use of fresh ingredients that needed used up pretty quickly last week. An added bonus is that it is under 200 calories a bowl – ideal for one of my 5:2 diet days.

For some reason I expected hubby to not like it, but he and number 1 son both found it really tasty. The addition of chopped coriander and a squeeze of lime juice were my own and I think they’re needed to add a bit of freshness and zest to the dish.

Serves 4   |  20 mins prep plus 20 mins cooking

Ingredients

• 1 litre chicken stock (or vegetable if you want to make this vegetarian)
• 1 x tin coconut milk
• 1 red or green chilli chopped finely
• thumb-sized piece of root ginger grated or finely chopped
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 500g butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
• 250g spinach leaves
• juice of half a lime
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander
• about 6 baby corn chopped
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Bring the stock to the boil in a large pot and add the coconut milk, soy sauce, fish sauce, chopped chilli and ginger
2. Mix the lemon juice and cornflour in a cup to make a paste and stir this into the stock, boiling gently for 5 mins or so
3. Add the squash to the stock and boil for 10-12 mins until tender
4. Stir in the spinach and cook until wilted, then add the lime juice and chopped coriander
5. Use a hand blender to liquidise to a smooth soup and then season to taste with salt and pepper
6. Finally, add the chopped corn, heat for 2-3 mins and then serve

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