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I mentioned before that I spent Thankgiving day out in the Philly burbs with my friend Roz and her family. Every year, Roz is assigned the job of making a roasted squash soup for the meal. I watched her as she made it this year and learned a few really terrific tricks. I am not a newcomer to blended squash soups, they are actually one of my favorites, but she introduced me to a two techniques in particular that have made me rethink my approach.
The first was that she cooked the onions in a bit of butter for the better part of an hour over extremely low heat. She didn't really even caramelize them so much as melt them into a rich, sweet, nutty jam. When they were translucent and nearly dissolving, she added the roasted squash and veggie stock. She cooked it all until tender and the squash mashed down with the flat side of a spoon. That takes us to her second trick, the double blend.
I will be the first to admit that when it comes to blended soups, I get a bit lazy. I like to use my immersion blender because it means that I don't have to pull out my blender or food processor and clean that too. However, having now tasted soup that was passed through a blender twice, I think I'm going to change my ways. What she does is put the pot on one side of the blender and a large bowl on the other. She works the soup through the blender in batches until it is all pureed and in the bowl. Then she washes out the pot so that there aren't any lumpy bits left and purees the soup again in batches, until it is all back in the pot on the other side once more. It was some darn good soup. I think I know what I'll be doing with the pumpkin and acorn squash that are currently on my kitchen counter!
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11-27-2007 @10:50AM Rob Brooks-Bilson said... Hi Marisa,
I used to use a regular blender for soups exclusively, but I got really tired of having to wait for them to sufficiently cool so as to not explode hot liquid all over the place. These days, I only use an immersion blender, and I find that it makes soups every bit as velvety smooth as the blender used to, if not more so.
I wonder if your experiences with the immersion blender have anything to do with the make/model as opposed to immersion vs. traditional blender?
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11-27-2007 @11:10AM Marisa McClellan said... I think that my experience has a great deal to do with the fact that my immersion blender isn't the greatest. I have an old plastic Braun model that I bought in college (probably around 1998).
What are you using that works so well? I'd love to hear!
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11-27-2007 @2:51PM raina rose said... will you make this soup for me at christmas??
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11-28-2007 @7:40AM Rob Fowler said... I 'sweat' the onions / leek down in the bottom of the pressure cooker. No way I'd do this for an hour though. I cook them on medium heat in butter until they are clear and soft. Sometimes they might be a little browned but that's never my intention for soups. I then pile the squash and cook unre pressure. I noted that Alton Brown baked his squash first. That sounds like a great way to get more flavour. I always blend in my commercial standard food processor as it's dishwasher safe, quite large and allows me to control the texture more than with a blender.
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11-30-2007 @1:18PM Patrick said... If you want an even smoother and velvetty soup you can strain it after you blend it.
To Rob, you can blend hot liquids, just only fill the blender up 1/3 of the way and make sure you put your hand over the cover, protecting it with a folded towel.
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