Hearty fall soup
Ingredients for 6 portions:
For the sage brown butter:
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 6-8 large sage leaves (or a lot of tiny leaves like I used in the video)
For the soup:
- 3 1/2 pound butternut squash
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 cup sliced carrots
- 6 garlic cloves, peeled
- sage-infused brown butter
- 2 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
- 6 cups chicken broth, plus more if needed
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or other vinegar)
- cayenne to taste
- creme fraiche and chive to garnish
Directions:
- Heat olive oil in a pan, add chopped onion and carrot. Sweat until onions are transparent
- Transfer onions and carrots to a baking pan (bonus if your sweating pan is also a baking pan!), tuck in the 6 peeled garlic cloves. Slice the squash in half, remove the guts and place, unskinned and inside up, on top of the onions, carrots and garlic. Bake until very tender, 50-60 minutes at 400F.
- Brown unsalted butter in a sauce pan, remove from heat and toss in half a dozen large sage leaves or a handfull of smaller leaves.
- Scoop out the squash into a soup kettle, add the baked vegetables and sage infused butter. If you want it a little sweet, add 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey and the 6 cups broth. Bring to a boil then simmer for about an hour.
- Use the stick blender to break everything up then run it through a sieve to pull out the fiberous bits.
- Adjust thickness with additional water or stock. Probably won't need to reduce it, but go ahead if you do.
- Add 2T apple cider vinegar, salt to taste and cayenne pepper to taste and you're ready to eat!
Serve with hard rolls or in a sourdough bowl.