Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
I usually make two or three soups every week for the restaurant. We always offer a vegetarian option such as tomato and a soup of the day, which is usually based on seasonal ingredients. For today’s soup I made a Roasted Butternut Squash with Lemon Crème Fraiche and Microgreens.
This is a really velvety, rich soup that has hints of sweetness as a result from roasting the butternut squash and adding sparkling apple cider and brown sugar. If you don’t have butternut squash you can substitute sugar pumpkins and get the same results. The hardest thing about making this soup is peeling, seeding and chopping the pieces before roasting. Butternut squash is a really hard, thick squash and it will require some upper body work, but it’s well worth it.
Peel, seed and chop butternut squash into uniform large chunks and toss with oil, salt and pepper. Place on a sheet pan and roast in a pre-heated 400 degree oven until golden brown and soft. Meanwhile, rough chop your mirepoix and add it to preheated oil in a large stockpot and cook until caramelized. Add chopped garlic, sage and thyme and deglaze the pan with sparkling apple cider. Add your roasted butternut squash, chicken stock and water to cover. (I like using a combination of chicken stock and water in my butternut squash soup, but you can make a vegetarian version by only adding water and/or vegetable stock.). Bring soup to a boil, stir and reduce heat to a medium simmer and cook for about an hour to meld the flavors. Ten minutes or so before blending the soup, add a small amount of cream, butter, brown sugar, and season really well with salt and a small amount of pepper. Butternut squash soup gets really thick when you blend it and so I always keep extra stock, cream or water on hand when starting to blend. Check seasonings again and add more salt and lemon juice to heighten the flavors.
When I garnish a soup I like to take three things into consideration: color, ingredients in the soup and contrasting flavors. So for this soup I decided that a hint a lemon would balance really nicely against the sweetness of the soup and the white crème fraiche and green microgreens give it great contrasting color. Another great garnish for this soup is to thinly slice a whole granny smith apple (with skins and core) on a mandolin and poach until tender (be careful to maintain the shape of the apple slices) in sparkling apple cider and a cinnamon stick. Strain apples really well and separate slices and place on a silpat on a sheet tray and bake in a 250 degree oven until crisp and lightly golden. The apples have a beautiful star design because of the seeds and offer a crisp contrast to the smooth soup.
I hope that a version of this soup will end up on your table this Thanksgiving. Enjoy!
Seafood Linguini
We have been really busy at the restaurant during lunch the past couple of days. We had a 130-person banquet today and we have a 100-person banquet tomorrow. So I’ve been working on the banquets and not really focusing on new specials. However, I did make a quick special yesterday, which was Seafood Linguini Pasta with Roasted Tomato, Fennel and Saffron Sauce. This is a really easy sauce and it has many, different uses and that’s why I wanted to share it with you.
My husband and I watch every reality cooking show on TV and as we’re watching these shows, I’ll be relaxing on the sofa and he will look over at me and ask, “So what’s your signature dish? If you had to come up with a signature dish in 20 minutes (from conception to plating), what would it be”? And at that moment in time, I become a contestant and I’m back in the kitchen and the pressure is on!
I have to be honest with you though—I really don’t have a signature dish. I like so many things that I can’t decide. However, I do use this Roasted Tomato, Fennel and Saffron sauce for many different uses. And so I this is my signature sauce—but not my signature dish!
As with any sauce, roasting/caramelizing the vegetables bring out an intense flavor. So I start with roasting a bunch of roma tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper in the oven over high heat (remove skins and seeds after cooling.) Meanwhile, slice onions, fennel and garlic and add to a saucepan and caramelize until soft and golden brown. Next add a large pinch of saffron threads, tomato paste and deglaze with fish/shellfish stock or chicken stock (preferably homemade). Add fresh chopped thyme, tarragon, oregano, salt and pepper and more stock if necessary and simmer for about one hour. Blend all ingredients to a smooth consistency (adding more stock if needed) and strain through a china cap. Taste and adjust seasonings.
This sauce can be used with any type of pasta, or risotto vegetable or protein. You can turn it into a soup by adding more stock and cream. You can use this sauce as a base for making Paella by adding Spanish chorizo, shellfish, etc, or you can turn it into a Cajun dish by adding some Cajun spices and serving it over rice, beans braised okra. The possibilities are endless and I really hope that you’ll experiment with different ingredients and maybe this sauce will become one of your signature sauces.
I hope you enjoy!
Wild Mushroom Ravioli
Monday’s are really busy for me at the restaurant. Since we are closed for lunch service over the weekend, I start from scratch on Monday mornings and I have a lot of prep for both my fish and sauté stations. I barely have enough time to finish all of my sets before lunch service starts at 11:30am. So I really don’t have time to focus on creating elaborate specials. After I get in and set up my station, I go and search the walk-in to see if there is anything that I can use to create a special. Fortunately, for me today, the executive chef prepared a fish special and so all I needed to prep was the chef special
We make all of our own pastas at the restaurant from scratch and so in the freezer I found a sheet tray of wild mushroom ravioli. Now, all I needed to come up with was a quick sauce. My special for today was, Wild Mushroom Ravioli with Madeira Cream Sauce, Sautéed Baby Shitake Mushrooms, Arugula Salad dressed with Lemon Vinaigrette and White Truffle Oil.
Making a cream sauce is an incredibly easy sauce to make. You start with a base of sautéed onions and garlic and/or roasted garlic. Deglaze with either chicken stock, brandy, Madeira, etc…whatever flavor you would like to impart in the sauce. You can then add additional flavorings such as roasted red peppers if you wanted to make a red pepper cream sauce or tomatoes, saffron, or sage—the list is endless. Add heavy cream to the mix, reduce to the desired consistency, season with salt and pepper to taste and blend together in a blender. You end up with a rich flavorful sauce that took you minutes to prepare (not including the time to reduce on the stove) and seconds to blend.
To finish the dish, you can add roasted or sautéed vegetables, or grilled chicken. Garnish with some colorful greens dressed in a tangy vinaigrette for heightened flavor and texture. And you end up with a delicious dish that was very easy to make.
Pan-Seared Scallops
My first dish is Pan-Seared Scallops with Lentils and Pancetta, Braised Swiss Chard, Apple Cider Reduction and Goat Cheese Crème Fraiche. I’ve included two different versions for plating the dish. The first photo is a somewhat more refined presentation and the second photo has a more simple presentation.
This is really a wonderful dish that is great for the fall/winter season and is very versatile. Instead of using scallops you could easily substitute any firm mild flavored white fish such as halibut, or mahi-mahi. You could even use this set and pair it with a brined center cut pork chop with caramelized apples in a port reduction sauce, instead of the apple cider reduction, but both work well.
The flavors of this dish are very balanced and work very well together. You get the saltiness from the pancetta, balanced against the earthiness of the lentils and sweetness of the scallops. The tangy flavor from the goat cheese plays well against the sweetness of the apple cider reduction. And then you get great texture and slight bitterness from the braised Swiss chard—not to mention great color!
At the restaurant, I hardly ever measure ingredients or follow a recipe (unless of course I’m making dessert) so I am not going to provide any exact quantities of ingredients below, but instead give you an idea of the techniques used and how dish is composed and plated.
Depending on how many people you plan on serving, plan on 3 large sea scallops per person, or a 5 to 5.5oz portion of fish (or an 8–10oz portion of pork). In a sauté pan, render the finely diced pancetta until crispy (if you don’t like to use pork products you can eliminate this from the dish) add finely diced mirepoix and sauté until soft. Then add your lentils and the appropriate amount of water. I also like to add a few aromatics such as a few sprigs of thyme, parsley and salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, stir, cover and cook until lentils are almost soft, approximately 20 minutes or so. The lentils will continue cooking when you remove them from the heat so let them stand for about 5 minutes and then drain off any excess water. Keep warm and set aside.
Next start your apple cider reduction. I like to use a combination of sparkling apple cider and unfiltered apple cider that has some texture. If you don’t have unfiltered apple cider you can always chop up a few apples and add them to the sparkling apple cider and strain before finishing the sauce. Add a 1/2 cinnamon stick and one star anise. Bring to a boil, and turn down to a simmer and reduce until the sauce lightly coats the back of a spoon. If the sauce is too sweet, you can always balance it out by adding a squeeze of lemon juice. Set the sauce aside and whisk in a small amount of butter to finish.
For the goat cheese crème fraiche all you need to do is add your crème fraiche and crumbled goat cheese to a blender or food processor, and blend until smooth. Taste to determine if it is the right consistency, if not you can add a very small amount of cream, lemon juice, salt and white pepper. Place sauce into a small pan, place on low heat and hold until plating.
Swiss chard is really a great leafy green. It has good texture for braising and holds up well when plated (unless of course you cook/boil it to death and then it will lose it’s color and will turn to an unappealing army green). During the recent e.coli outbreak in September I used a lot different greens as a substitute for spinach and all of them worked great depending on the dish. So if you are not a big fan of Swiss chard, you could use spinach, collard greens, beet greens, pea sprouts, or micro greens, etc., etc… Remove the stem/vein that runs the length of the chard, chop into large bite-size pieces, wash well and spin in a salad spinner. Heat a sauté pan to medium-high heat, add your oil, bring the oil up to temp, drop in your chard, add a small amount of white wine, salt and white pepper, and a small amount of butter. Toss a few times, and cook for about two minutes and then turn off the heat. The heat from the pan will continue to cook the chard and reduce any liquid, while preserving the bright green color.
Now that your mise en place is set to go, you can fire up the sauté pan and start sautéing your scallops. Scallops cook in a very short amount of time and so all of your other ingredients must be hot/warm and ready to plate before starting the scallops. (Including your plates so make sure that you turn the oven on to 225 degrees to warm your plates in advance.) Pat the scallops dry with a paper towel, salt and pepper on one side and then slowly add to the hot oil in the sauté pan. Cook for about 1.5 to 2 minutes on the presentation side, (should have nice caramelization) and turn and then sauté for another minute or so. Remove from the heat and start plating. Enjoy!!!
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