The Slow Domestique

Every dish has its day, and its story. Recently I was cooking for my friend P’s State dinner, ten people and five courses. It was to be served on his fine china and with the solid silver table ware, of course. So I had devised a correspondingly opulent menu.
One of the stars was to be White Asparagus soup, the recipe borrowed from Chef PD. Now obviously I needed white asparagus, could I find it? No. not even the dreaded watery tinned variety. With one day to go I was concerned so all the soupy alternatives were dragged from my memory banks. The only idea emerging was a sweet potato soup, I’d made in the past but this was somewhat ethnic for the state occasion and did not fit the menu (too spicy), but a germ of an idea grew from the color orange. Which brought me to butter nut squash, a most underrated vegetable, all though still disarmingly bland for this application. Mulling this over, I thought I could add the Goats cheese, as it blends well with the roasted squash in a lasagna I make. And so with a bit of, seat of the pants cooking the dish was born.

Receipt

• Two Butternut Squash
• 3 Cloves of Garlic
• 2 Shallots
• a Celery Heart
• Vegetable Stock
• Milk
• Cream
• 200g Goats Cheese

1. Roast the squash in olive oil with crushed garlic cloves.
2. Sweat the chopped shallots and celery in butter, add a little flour to help thicken.
3. Add the stock and roasted squash, and cook out.
4. Puree then add cheese in chunks, cook a little more to allow cheese to melt somewhat.
5. Add cream to finish, and adjust consistency with milk if needed.

Bon appetit

butternut squash, goats cheese, soup

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.