1. Sauté onion, garlic and ginger in butter and oil until soft.
   
   
2. Add squash and stock and simmer, covered 15-20 minutes.
   
   
3. Garnish: Fry the ginger in medium hot oil (not smoking) til golden. Drain on a paper towel.
   
   
4. Purée soup. Stir in lime juice and salt and pepper. Garnish each bowl with a garnish of a lime slice and ginger strips.

This soup is amazing and rich. The ginger strips are the secret ingredient. It makes a wonderful appetizer to a fancy dinner or can be served as the whole dinner itself. It is as excellent when made with vegetable stock as it is with chicken stock. I usually use acorn squash. The original recipe called for butternut squash but I find that the butternut doesn't have a strong enough flavour for my taste. (Maybe I just got a rotten butternut the time I tried it....)

* I find it is easiest to chop the squash into wedges that are about as wide as the vegetable peeler - it's MUCH easier to peel the skin.

Cheese baking powder biscuits go well with this. It is also good as an appetizer to Cornish game hen.

Adapted from Gourmet Magazine Sept 87 http://www.epicurious.com/