David Rubel's

What's For Dinner?

12/13/06 

Butternut Squash Soup

(serves two adults and two children)

This soup is rich enough to serve as a dessert. At our house, we use it as the basis for an easy winter meal. I make it ahead of time on the weekend, then we serve it midweek with a warmed-up baguette and a hearty salad, perhaps with some roasted beets and goat cheese or pears and walnuts.

• 1 medium butternut squash (about 2-2 1/2 lb)
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 Tbs unsalted butter
• 4 c chicken stock
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary leaves, coarsely chopped
• ground nutmeg
• kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper
• heavy cream (optional)

1. Trim and peel the squash. Halve it lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Cut into one-inch (or thereabout) dice. Chop the onion.

2. In a large stockpot, melt the butter and saute the onions over a medium-low flame until they turn translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the squash, chicken stock, and rosemary. Raise the flame to high and bring the stock to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the squash becomes tender, about 25 minutes.

3. Using a slotted spoon or wire skimmer, remove the squash to the bowl of a food processor and puree. Return the squash puree to the stockpot and stir to combine. Season to taste with the nutmeg, salt, and pepper. When serving, consider drizzling a little heavy cream into each bowl.

Back to the Top

Tips

* This soup has a lot of body. If you prefer a thinner soup, simply add more chicken stock.

* If you own an immersion blender and haven’t figured out when to use it, this is your chance. Instead of hauling out the food processor to puree the squash, simply stick the immersion blender into your stockpot and go to work.

Listener Feeback

“I made the soup the day I heard the recipe,” Sandy Nichols reports, “and loved it, but I felt that I needed to add a bit of sweetener, so I threw in some brown sugar. I just made it again last night, and this time I added a couple of cut-up carrots to the mix. This really gave it a much better flavor with a bit of natural sweetness. Now it's my favorite winter lunch with a piece of garlic bread.”

Joe Magrath undertook two experiments with this recipe. First, he tried making it with a different method (baking the squash first); then, he tried making it with that different method and a different squash. The baking method he used is the same one I use to prepare squash as a simple side dish: He sliced the squash lengthwise into halves, placed those halves cut side-down in a pan with half an inch of water, and cooked them in a 400-degree Fahrenheit oven until tender, about 45 minutes. Then he removed the seeds (which I usually do before baking) and scooped out the flesh. Next, he sauteed the onions; added the stock, cooked squash, and rosemary; and pureed the mixture. “Then I heated it to boiling,” he writes, “and let it simmer 10 minutes.” Joe also tried this method with buttercup squash—which has a much thicker skin, so you need to use twice as much, or nearly 4 pounds, to get the same amount of flesh. According to Joe, “I liked both, but I think the buttercup is a little better.”

If you have tried one of these recipes and have an improvement or tip or variation to suggest, please e-mail David at dinner@wamc.org. Also feel free to send along your own family cuisine recipes. You can even request dishes that you'd like David to present in the future.

---

David Rubel is president of Agincourt Press, a book production company in Chatham, New York. He spends his days writing American history, then heads home after work to cook for his wife and two young children. His most recent book is The Coming Free: The Struggle for African-American Equality (DK, 2005).