Butternut soup

The first time Juliette and I ever cooked a butternut was a month or so ago, after one appeared in the Weekly Pannier.

The butternut squash was a mystery to us. What is it and how do you cook it? We've seen the pale ocher object in markets for years but just didn't know what they were or what you might get out of them in the way of nourishment or food pleasure. Maybe we avoided them because of associations with the word squash itself, which always calls to mind the yellow mush you get from cooking the squash grown in the southern United States. Plus there's the object itself, which looks like a swollen bowling pin--or, in the interest of nutrition, I'd prefer likening it to the schmoo (which was an animal, so the similarity ends with the shape). In any case, our first Weekly Pannier of fruit and legumes that came to us in October this year from the organic farmers down the road contained a butternut squash. As with everything else the farmer couple selects for the Weekly Pannier, the butternut was fresh and ready to eat.

One feature of the Weekly Pannier that Juliette and I appreciate is the constant variety of fruits and vegetables that land on the kitchen counter. Indeed, it is the rare basket that contains only foods that we know well already. The couple who distribute the baskets in our town (who are themselves producers of bio (organic) wine) must enjoy the reactions they get from us. One time, I think I even said something like, "It looks like Père Noël has been here." So you can understand how fascinated we were to be presented with this new opportunity--and challenge, for we knew nothing about how to prepare it.

For a week or so, the butternut sat on our kitchen counter while we debated what approach to take. Should we peel it and cut it into pieces and cook it in a sauce pan to make a soup? Or would it be better to roast it in the oven, skin and all? Since it resembles a pumpkin (which is, we discovered later, a distinctly different sibling in the squash family), we thought we might simply treat it as one. However one cooks a pumpkin, we figured, ought to work for a butternut. And like all modern folks, we were tempted to give the internet a search for recipes (which abound, as we later found), but neither Juliette nor I wanted preconceived notions to stand in the way of our making our own mistakes--and successes.

For our first go, we chose soup, so the first task was to chop it into chunks. Cutting up the butternut was not easy--although the skin is not thick, it is dense and tough--but with a little practice, I got the hang of slicing the skin off. A sharp knife and a steady hand are required, you should know. But if you have one of those fancy professional peelers you can whack the skin right off in nothing flat (this video shows how it is done and it looks easy with the right tools--although I chose to scoop out the seeds first).

While I was wrestling with the butternut, Juliette put some olive oil and a chopped onion in a large sauce pan and I dumped in the butternut chunks. After that, it was simply matter of keeping the pan on the lowest heat for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally, until the butternut had melted into a thick soup. The aroma was subtle but definite, like pumpkin but lighter. To give the soup body and flavor, Juliette suggested some chopped fresh ginger and a half cup of almond puree that comes in a box.

At lunchtime, we sat down to a steaming bowl of butternut squash soup that delighted us so much that we wanted to phone up the Weekly Pannier folks and beg for another. But we didn't. We were patient, and our patience was rewarded when, a few baskets later, we were blessed with a nice, hefty one, which came with a heaping double-handful of chagaigne . . . but that's another story.