I just returned from a whirlwind 4-day trip to London, during which I made no plans besides reservations, and essentially just ate meals, walked them off and then ate more meals. Truly a spectacular and restorative few days for someone who likes to eat – and loves London, especially during the holidays – as I do. Their holiday decorations city-wide (Angels flying over Piccadilly Circus! Metallic orbs bobbing down Oxford Street! An insane Winter Wonderland with a full Bavarian Village in Hyde Park!) make New York City’s attempt at festivities look laughable, as I grimly noted on my way to work on Thursday morning. As usual, the one thing that made me ready to come home was the prospect of cooking in my kitchen.

Boy was it a rich few days…in the dietary sense. I went full British at St. John in the most indulgent lunch of my life to date (bone marrow toast, roasted purple broccoli, buttered greens, ox heart and chips, Welsh rarebit and bread pudding with butterscotch sauce), sampled some excellent inventive Israeli at NOPI and The Barbary and dug into a fabulous Indian feast at Dishoom. I’m a real Anglophile and consider meat pies my soul food, and they are especially abundant this time of year, wrapped in pretty packages throughout the city. I ate those too.

So I’m a little behind on veggie intake, as you might have inferred. While it’s no longer in my fridge, this delicious kabocha squash soup was something I made a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed- despite the fact that, given how much pureed soup I ate following my surgery this summer, I’d all but retired the Vitamix for 2017. It also looked a little like baby food when I brought it for lunch at work. Suffice it to say that it had a few marks against it from the get-go, but it managed to exceed expectations on all fronts.

This soup screams autumn and winter. It will fill your kitchen with the scent of roasted kabocha squash. It’s sweet (from the squash and the addition of apple and fennel), it’s rich from the onions, it’s got a cider vinegar bite. Topped with toasted pumpkin seeds, it’s also got some textural interest, which is key for me in a soup. And after gorging myself for a week, it is exactly the restorative soup I need.

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Squash Soup with Apple Cider and Brown Butter

Category: Soups & Stews

Servings: Serves 4-6

Note: This recipe easily doubles (if you have a big pot). It's also great topped with toasted, lightly salted pumpkin seeds.

Ingredients

  • 1 (2 1/2 lb) kabocha squash, halved and seeded
  • 6 tablespoons (3/4 stickk) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 2 cups unsweetened apple cider
  • 1 firm, crisp medium apple, such as Honeycrisp, peeled, cored and quartered
  • 1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 medium fennel bulb, thinly sliced
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, plus more for serving
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage leaves
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme
  • 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Arrange a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and place the squash, cut-side down, on the pan. Roast for 1 hour or until tender when pierced with a fork. Let cool slightly, then peel away and discard the skin and any other tough pieces. (You should have about 2 1/2 cups squash flesh.)
  2. Meanwhile, in a medium Dutch oven set over medium heat, melt the butter. Cook, whisking frequently, until the butter solids are brown and start to smell nutty, about 5 minutes.
  3. Add the apple cider, apple, onion, fennel, vinegar, garlic, sage, thyme and maple syrup and bring the mixture to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook until the apples, fennel and onion are soft and tender, about 30 minutes. Add the squash to the soup and cook for 10 minutes more to blend the flavors. Let the soup cool for 30 minutes.
  4. Working in batches, in a blender or the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, puree the soup until smooth. (It should coat, not cake, the back of a spoon.)
  5. Return the soup to the pot. (Alternatively, puree the soup directly in the pot using an immersion blender.) If the soup is too thick, add water until you've reached the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and additional vinegar, if desired.
  6. Return the soup to the stove and reheat over medium heat until warm. Divide the soup among four to six bowls and dig in.

Notes

https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2017/12/08/squash-soup-with-apple-cider-and-brown-butter/