Saffron squash & carrot soup with youvarlakia (tiny meatballs)

There is something about London in November that just makes me ache for hearty soups and curling up on the sofa with thick socks. It’s not so much the cold – it gets worse over December and January. It is all about the sharp smell of the cold to come in the air. Sort of like the promise of winter right around the corner.

I was looking for something seasonal to do this week and I stumbled upon some lovely ambercup squash the other day. They look so lovely, don’t they? Small, round, tough, they are like a toy vegetable I think. In the past I never cooked with squash and pumpkin, for some reason my family is not very big on them. My mum has now started growing them in her garden, too late for me as I have flown the nest and my memories of what we eat “at home” are pretty much set. So using squash and pumpkin is very much a London thing for me.

As much as I love vegetable soups though I always long for a bit of meat there – it’s the Greek DNA. For this recipe I used some youvarlakia. These are minced beef meatballs, tiny balls that in Greece we usually cook in an avgolemono soup.

Maybe I should pause here for a bit of vocabulary. Avgolemono is a double word from avgo(egg) and lemoni (lemon). It’s a way to create a soup or sauce. (It’s also a song by So Tiriwhich cracks me up every time as well as every other Greek I know). Maybe I ‘ll do a video at some point of how you make it as it’s a bit tricky but it’s the ultimate soup. I’m convinced it’s the reason why the phrase “chicken soup for the soul” was invented. The person who first said it had just had avgolemono chicken soup.

I digress. Youvarlakia take a bit of time to make so I always make a great big batch and freeze them. I took about 12 out of the freezer this morning and they were ready to add to the soup but I’ll give you my little recipe below – it’s a bit of a twist from the original Greek.

So, tonight was the perfect time for a bit of marriage of experiences. A soup with ambercup squash and carrots for Britain, adding some youvralakia for Greece. And a bit of saffron too – quite a bit. For that extra bit of aromatic goodness.

By Sofia