Tesco and Jamie's Thai Squash Noodle Soup

Me and Tesco have rustled up a vibrant, fragrant soup that really packs a punch. We're talking seasonal veg, creamy coconut and warming Thai red curry paste. Whatever the weather, my Thai red squash noodle soup is an absolute favourite. Look at this. That's the kind of food that I love. Stuff that makes you feel good. Let's start off with some roasting. This is what's going to really command big flavour. So I've got the oven turned up to 200 degrees Celsius, which is 450 Fahrenheit. And then I'm going to get this squash, take the end off like that. Get your knife, tip in first, go just to a half and go all the way to the bottom and then down. Then we turn it around like that and we simply go through the other side. Look at that, look at the colour. Now we can use the seeds, the flesh and the skin. They're all gold, they're all beautiful. So seeds, scrape those out with a little teaspoon. They'll become almost like little kind of peanuts later. Forget about those for a second. I'm just going to cut this half into quarters. And then just clank it up into like two, three centimetre chunks. Straight into a roasting tray. You can roast squash like this with your roast dinner. Bases of soups like I'm doing. You can throw it into curries, put it into risottos. Really, really nice. We're going to go in with black pepper, nice seasoning of salt and some olive oil. Now you could flavour it more with herbs and spices if you wish. But I want to keep it nice and simple. So in the oven it goes for 45 minutes. Halfway through that cooking time, I'm going to put the peppers in. Push the little stalk in like that and remove the stalk and seeds. And then I'm just going to tear this up and put it to one side like that. So I've got some rice noodles here. 200 grams, pour boiling water over these noodles. They start to rehydrate straight away. Leave these for like 10 minutes and then you just drain them and they're ready to rock and roll. Okay, next up let's talk tofu. So this is a firm tofu. You've got protein in there and I want to show you a little trick so you get that nice kind of crispy texture on the outside and sort of soft texture on the inside. Simply get some kitchen paper or a clean tea towel. Put your tofu in there like that. Put a tin on top and let that little bit of weight, just press it and take some of the excess moisture, right. And that's just going to make it slightly firmer and it's going to fry up a real treat. So I've got spring onions here. Give them a little wash. I'm going to use it in two ways. So cut it in half and then I'll take the green part to one side. This white part here cut into little chunks and that's going to go into our soup. Now the green part, cut it in half and then I'm going to try my best to finely slice it. If you ever want to do some lovely garnishes for broths, soups, rice dishes, you know noodle dishes. I've got a nice little technique that I think is fun. If you put it in ice cold water it just kind of makes it all curl and crispen up and that gives you this beautiful kind of garnish with the crunch, with the softness of the noodles. I do love that. You could do the same thing with like speed peel a carrot. I'll steal a little bit of the pepper here and it's just beautiful. If you had some herbs, like this is not in the recipe but anything like that. Radishes, you know have a little play and I promise you, you won't regret it. It's really, really fun. So let's have a little look at the tofu here. So it's drained off a bit more moisture which is lovely. I'm going to take a little bit of olive oil. I'm going to rub it with salt and pepper. So definitely not traditional but this is the way I want to do it today. Put that into the pan as a chunk. Just get it golden on all the sides right. So just spend a bit of time doing that. Five minutes, that's absolutely fine. In the oven, this has now had about 25 minutes or so. Look at that beautiful colour. We'll go straight in with some peppers here. Mix it all up and then we'll put it back in the oven. So it's going to have about 45 minutes so that the squash is nutty and sweet and those peppers will be sweet and tender. So back in it goes. Let's have a little check of the noodles. Hot, steamy and rehydrated. So I'll drain these now. If you're worried about the noodles sticking, just put a little oil on it. A little sesame oil is very nice. I mean this is by no means like an authentic sort of Thai dish right. But it is a really lovely way to put flavours together to make a lovely meal that you can share. So look, let's have a little look at the tofu. We just want a nice little bit of colour on there. Look at that. So you've got that crispy sort of golden colour. We like that. That's very nice. And then our little squash seeds. Fry those off in here as well. A little pinch of salt just to kind of get them really, really tasty. Can you hear them starting to pop? So that is a good sign. Look at that lovely colour. Just put that on a plate. I'm going to get all of these lovely seeds. So it's nice that we used the whole squash. Take a lime and a little grater. Really nice. Oh it smells amazing. In the pan. This is where the fun begins. We're going to go in with the white parts of the spring onions. Get that sizzling. I am going to cheat. I'm going to use a Thai red curry paste. They're so convenient. We're going to go in with two tablespoons. That's going to be a lovely base of flavour. The smells. And we'll go in with a tin of coconut milk. So fragrant and alive. Very exciting. I'm going to fill this up with two tins of water. So bring that to the boil. Let's have a little look at the squash and the peppers. So in we go with three quarters of the peppers and the squash. You can see that roasting. Simmer it for like three, four minutes. I'll pop these back in the oven just for a couple of minutes while that's doing its thing. So look this has come to the boil now. Oh the smells are amazing. So what we can do is just take that off the heat and I'm going to blend it. I'm going to use a hand blender. You could use a liquidiser if you wish. Blitz it until a consistency that you like. It can be super fine, it can be chunky, whatever you want. And it's going to take this from being quite brothy to quite thick. Which I love. Nice and simple. So let's have a little try. It's good. Let's put this back on the heat just to simmer up and that's going to be gorgeous. At the last minute I can hit it with some lime juice. Just half of it. That's going to be lovely. I've got our little crunchy bit. So I'm going to drain that now. Just gives you these kind of crazy garnishes. And that with the lovely noodles is going to be a thing of beauty. Tofu. We can just cut this into six. Look at that. You can see on the inside how kind of fresh that is. Character on the outside and that lovely kind of juicy inside is a really nice thing. Let's plate up a portion. Take your noodles. Come on. And just load up. Let's get those remaining bits of veg. Beautiful. Take some of that lovely soup. Look at the colours. What I love about this is it's really good in the winter and the summer. Because it's fresh, it's fragrant, it's hearty, it's got spice. We'll take some of this lovely garnish. We've got the tofu here. Really nice. But don't forget you've got those lovely little seeds. Look at that. Beautiful. So that my friends is a really delicious dish. It's veggie and it's vegan. Bigging up tofu but of course you could swap that out for beautiful grilled chicken or prawns or fish or whatever you want. So if you're thinking about getting more veggies into your life, trying something new, it's kind of all happening here. I'm going to attempt it. Let's get slurping. Come on. Fragrant. Let's get some of that tofu. The texture difference is really good and it really does kind of soak up that sauce really nicely as well. Look at that. I could literally just destroy that bowl of delicious food. I'm pleased with that. If you want to try this recipe then simply go to Tesco Real Food online. Get the recipe. Get shopping. Get cooking. And get slurping. You won't regret it. I'm teaching my kids table manners you see. And then I get amongst it like this. It's all about eating with passion isn't it?