Butternut squash velouté

Butternut squash velouté with pumpkin raviolo and toasted pumpkin seeds

It’s pumpkin season and Halloween is almost upon us. So I’ve been refining my butternut squash soup recipe. After my time studying at Le Cordon Bleu an obvious change was to use double cream instead of crème fraiche. Easy. This lifted the soup to a luxurious velvety velouté. YUM. Rich double cream FTW. It makes such a difference. That done to elevate it further with some snazzy garniture. I wanted to introduce some complementary flavours and contrasting textures.

As the saying goes, “if it’s in the dish, it goes on the dish.” So time to get creative with butternut squash. Time to put what might have been wasted to good use. I came up with pumpkin 4 ways—roasted, toasted, pickled and puréed.

For a bit of bite, I roasted cubes of squash in butter and herbs. Do you discard the seeds once you’ve disembowelled your butternut squash? Bad move. I toasted them for a salty crunch. They’re the perfect sprinkle. An extra crunch comes from pumpkin crisps while pickled squash delivers a sour hit with a hint of sweetness. I made a creamy butternut squash purée and boosted it with soft goat’s cheese and a pumpkin seed paste. Packed inside a nutty raviolo, it’s quite decadent but works wonderfully cut by some bitter broccoli shoots. Drizzles of cream and pumpkin seed oil provide a striking contrast against the deep yellow velouté.

This silky soupy with its gang of garnishes is the ultimate comfort food. It’s a beautiful looking dish and I’m in love with the new flavours and textures. It’s not as technical as the recipe sounds so please give it a go. You won’t be disappointed.

Pumpkin purée raviolo topped with pumpkin crisps and pickled pumpkin

Ingredients

Serves 8.

VELOUTÉ:

  • 50g unsalted butter

  • 2 onions, finely chopped

  • 1kg butternut squash, peeled and deseeded, and roughly diced

  • 1litre chicken stock

  • 180ml double cream

TOASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS:

  • Save all the seeds from the butternut squash

  • Olive oil

RAVIOLI:

  • 100g 00 flour

  • 1 egg

  • 0.5tsp olive oil

  • Salt

  • 50g unsalted butter

  • 250g butternut squash, roughly diced

  • 175ml whole milk

  • 1tsp lemon juice

  • 50g toasted seeds from the butternut squash

  • 15g pumpkin seed oil

  • 15g extra virgin olive oil

  • 40g goats cheese

ROASTED PUMPKIN DICE:

  • 20g unsalted butter

  • 350g butternut squash, cut into 2cm cubes

  • 1 sprig of rosemary

  • 1 sprig of thyme

  • 1 garlic clove

  • 15ml sherry vinegar

PICKLED PUMPKIN:

  • 50g water

  • 50g white sugar

  • 200g butternut squash, cut into a block measuring 2cm wide by 8cm long

  • 100ml white wine vinegar

PUMPKIN CRISPS:

  • 100g butternut squash, cut into a block measuring 3cm wide by 6cm long

GARNISH:

  • Double cream

  • Pumpkin seed oil

  • Broccoli shoots

  • Fresh thyme leaves

Instructions

VELOUTÉ:

  1. Sweat the sliced onions in melted butter until soft and translucent.

  2. Add the diced squash. Cook until the squash begins to soften and turns golden. Stir occasionally.

  3. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and gently simmer until the squash is very soft.

  4. Off the heat, purée with a hand blender and pass through a drum sieve. Return to a clean pan.

  5. Heat the soup to just before the boil. Fold in the cream and bring to the boil then turn the heat off.

  6. Season with salt and white pepper.

Toasted pumkin seeds

TOASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS:

  1. Pull away the strings of flesh from the seeds and rinse in cold water. Pat dry.

  2. Spread the seeds evenly over baking tray and coat with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt.

  3. Bake in the oven at 160C for about 10 minutes until lightly golden brown. Remove and leave to cool.

RAVIOLI:

  1. Place the flour into a bowl.

  2. Whisk the egg, salt and oil.

  3. Make a well in the flour and pour in the wet ingredients. Incorporate by chopping with the edge of a scraper.

  4. Bring together in the bowl using your hand. Turn out onto the surface and knead for 2 minutes until a uniform dough is formed. Form a ball then flatten.

  5. Wrap tightly in cling film and rest in the fridge for an hour.

  6. For the butternut squash purée, first brown the butter to make Beurre Noisette and pass it through a fine sieve into a clean pan to remove the solids. Add the diced squash, salt and milk. Cook until very soft then blitz and pass through a drum sieve. Season with salt and white pepper. Let cool then chill in the fridge.

  7. To make the pumpkin seed paste, place the toasted butternut squash seeds in a mortar and pestle. Pour in the pumpkin seed oil and olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and pound into a past. Let down with cold water to achieve a buttery consistency.

  8. Rollout out the pasta dough. Cut into 2 strips.

  9. In the palm of your hand, put a small amount of the butternut squash purée, toasted seed paste and goats cheese, then roll into a ball. Repeat.

  10. Place the balls of filling onto one of the strips of pasta placed about 2 fingers apart. Wet around each ball with a little cold water.

  11. Cut the second strip of pasta into squares to cover each ball of filling. With each square, stick one side down, stretch over the filling and stick the other side. Carefully secure the third side and push around the filling to remove the air and secure the last side. Use curled fingers to shape the filling within the pasta into a circle.

  12. Use a 65mm cutter to cut out a circular ravioli from each square.

  13. Place onto a floured tray until ready to cook.

Pumpkin dice roasted in butter infused with garlic, rosemary and thyme

ROASTED PUMPKIN DICE:

  1. In an oven-proof frying pan, heat the butter until it’s lightly foaming. Don’t let it burn. Add a sprig of rosemary and thyme and a clove of garlic, halved. Add the cubes of butternut squash and colour all sides until golden.

  2. Season with salt and white pepper.

  3. Cooking in the oven at 180C until tender.

  4. Deglaze with sherry vinegar, shaking the pan to evenly coat the cubes of squash. Remove the cubes from the hot pan.

Rolled pickled pumpkin, broccoli shoots and pumpkin crisps

PICKLED PUMPKIN:

  1. Use a speed peeler to take thin strips off the butternut squash along the length of the block. You want 16 strips, each measuring 2cm wide by 8cm long and 1mm thick.

  2. Add the vinegar, water and sugar to pan. Submerge the strips of squash. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for a minute. Turn the heat off and leave the squash to cool in the pickling liquor.

  3. Once cooled, roll the strips into cylinders 2cm wide. Use 2 strips per cylinder. Return to the syrup until serving.

PUMPKIN CRISPS:

  1. Use a speed peeler to take thin strips off the butternut squash along the length of the block. You want 16 strips, each measuring 3cm wide by 6cm long and 1mm thick.

  2. Place the strips on a baking tray.

  3. Bake in the oven at 140C until they crisp up. They shouldn’t take on any colour.

  4. Let cool before serving.

To build the plate:

  1. Pile up 4 or 5 cubes of roasted butternut squash in the centre of the bowl.

  2. Ladle in the soup until it just covers the cubes.

  3. Drizzle a little cream over the surface of the soup and then a little pumpkin seed oil.

  4. Carefully place a raviolo onto the pile of cubes so it sits on the soup.

  5. Sprinkle some toasted pumpkin seeds around the raviolo.

  6. Place a few broccoli shoots on top of the raviolo.

  7. Then a pickled squash roll.

  8. Then place a couple of pumpkin crisps onto the sides of the raviolo.

  9. Lastly, sprinkle over a few fresh thyme leaves.

Hey presto! This soup is worth the effort. Enjoy.

Pumpkin raviolo with pickled pumpkin, pumpkin crisps and toasted pumpkin seeds

SOUP, RECIPESimon Bakerbutternut squash, pumpkin, pasta, pumpkin seeds, velouté, ravioloComment