BUTTERNUT SQUASH BISQUE

The first day of fall arrived officially this past week. You know what that means—it’s the start of Soup-er Sundays at the Ramm household. One of my favorite restaurants, Reds on the River, served a Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque recently. Oh my. It was like eating autumn-flavored silk. It wasn’t too sweet, or too overpowered by nutmeg. It was juuuuuuuust right.

There are many recipes for butternut squash soup at your Googling fingertips. However, when I recently attended a cooking class taught by Red’s executive chef, Glen Forgie, I had the opportunity to ask about what made his version so tasty. First Chef Glen described his roasting technique (see below). In addition to oven-roasting the butternut squash, one thing that he mentioned, that I haven’t found in any of the recipes online is that he caramelizes the onion for this particular soup. So that’s what I did, too.
I am SOUP-ER pleased with the results of this, the very first soup of SOUP-ER Sundays 2011.

First:
HOW TO ROAST A BUTTERNUT SQUASH
1. Slice unpeeled squash in half, scrape out seeds & discard.
2. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
3. Turn cut side (flat side) down on a baking sheet lined with foil.
4. Roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour.
5. To check doneness, use a wooden spoon to press on the backs of the squash. When they are soft and “give” to the pressure of the spoon, they are done.

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH BISQUE
3 - 4 cups roasted butternut squash, peeled & roughly chopped (I roasted two squash, but had extra left over)
1 onion, sliced thin
Olive oil & butter
¼ to ½ cup chopped carrot
¼ to ½ cup chopped celery
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups milk (I used 1 cup milk and 1 cup half-n-half)
Salt and pepper
Pinch of nutmeg


1. Roast squash as directed above. When cool enough, peel.

2. Caramelize onion. In the vessel that you plan to make the soup in (your stockpot), heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add onion. Onion will turn soft and begin to brown. When onion is a caramel color (and tastes so delicious you think you could eat the whole pan), your onion is done. This can take several minutes, depending on your pan, how much heat, the amount of onion, etc. Be patient! Also--make sure not to stir so frequently that you don’t allow caramelization to take place, but also not so INfrequently that you burn your onions!

3. Add the chopped squash to the onions. Lower the heat to low and stir around a little.

4. At this point, you could also add the chopped carrot and celery without sautéing, but I wanted to cook some of the rawness out of them, so I tossed them in a little olive oil and sautéed them for just a few minutes. Anyway, fresh or sautéed, add carrots and celery to your squash and onions.

5. Add the 2 cups of chicken (or vegetable) stock. Allow ingredients to mingle and get to know each other. Kick the heat up a little.

6. Add the milk. Or if you’re like me, the milk and half-n-half.

7. Bring just to simmer to heat everything through—and give the flavors a chance to come together.

8. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

9. MAYBE add a pinch of nutmeg, if but just remember—with adding anything…add in tiny increments and taste, taste, taste. You can always add, but you can never take it back.

10. To make a really lovely bisque, puree in a blender and serve.