Al's awesome Butternut Squash Soup 06_Sept_2010
'Cooking for Numpties'
This one happened because I was in the local supermarket where they had a big load of Butternut Squash sitting there with no takers. So my butternut Squash was almost free, because they wanted to offload the stuff. In the West of Scotland, a Butternut Squash is completely unfamiliar territory, so almost everyone will say.. 'Oh what a weird thing... can you eat it?'.. or 'is it poisonous' but they wouldn't actually buy one to try! I only know about Butternut squash because my better half who has been to the US quite a few times does know about them and has eaten them, with no ill-effects. This is my second attempt at making Butternut Squash soup and is far and away the best. To be fair, I absolutely hate the spell of the stuff when it's raw. In it's raw state it looks like an elongated gourd made of cream coloured PVC and when you cut one open, they smell of Linseed oil, which I loathe the smell of, but they undergo a transformation when cooked, and are quite pleasant as a base for soup.
Here's what a butternut Squash looks like, both whole and chopped open.
Butternut Squash
One decent sized squash will make a nice pot of soup. The skin is incredibly thin but extremely strong. You need a serious knife to cut up this stuff. No kidding! A kukri, or machete is about right. I used my professional cook's knives. Once you split it lengthwise as above, scoop out and bin the seeds and other yuk and chop the neck parts off the rounded ends. To peel the skin off what you have left, a Yorkshire peeler is good. The skin as I said is thin but incredibly tough. You WILL have a struggle with it, but persevere! Put the bits of squash aside for a minute and have a sit down. You deserve it.
To start the soup, place lardons made from a pack of streaky bacons into your pressure cooker pot (no lid!) with a trace of cooking oil and part cook them. They don't need to be crispy, just cooked off for a few minutes while stirring gently. What's a lardon? A Lardon is a very small piece of fatty meat used to add flavour. To make the lardons, I just emptied the pack of smoked streaky bacon onto a chopping-board and diced it up into very small pieces with a sharp knife. By small. I mean perhaps 4mm squares. With the lardons 'cooked off' AKA 'done', take the pot off the heat. It's time to add the other stuff.
Cut up the flesh of the squash into chunks and throw them in your pressure cooker pot with the lardons. Any size chunks will work really.
Add the following items.
Two onions (chopped). I used red onions but white ones are fine.
A 1/2 pint mug of water
Salt and black pepper to taste. I used a bit less than a small level teaspoonful of salt and a little black pepper..
A half cupful of tomato juice. (A similar amount of V8 juice is even better should you have some.. I actually used V8).
One beef stock cube, or alternatively a gel type sachet of beef stock. I used the sachet this time.
With the ingredients in the pot, put on the lid and bring up to pressure. Once you reach pressure, cook for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat.
Allow to cool (VERY important!) You must NEVER try to liquidise hot food. You could be severely burned.
When cool, open the pot (it won't look remotely like soup) and transfer the contents of the pot into a liquidiser in batches. Liquidise the batches and transfer back to the pressure cooker pot. Now it will look a lot more like soup.
If you plan to eat the soup there and then, warm it up on the cooker and you are ready to go. For a more creamy soup, you can add a dollop of cream to the soup and gently stir it while you warm it up.
Here's what the soup looks like... I had two plates of the stuff with some plain bread to mop it up. Scrumptious.
It should have a thick and smooth consistency and taste great. It's very satisfying and filling and would make a great winter soup... if only I could get the squash then!
So, now you know what a Butternut Squash is and what you can make with one.
73 Al.
GM1SXX