Around My French Table (18 page)

T
HERE ARE SOME FOODS THAT INVARIABLY
produce a sigh of delight and a smile when you mention them to the French. It's easy to imagine this being the case with chocolate or fresh-from-the-farm crème fraîche, oysters, truffles, or even simple dishes like rice pudding and roast chicken. But when a squash gets a swoon, you know you've hit on something. The squash of sighs is the Red Kuri, or what the French call
potimarron,
a name that probably describes the vegetable's genetic makeup and certainly gives you a heads-up on what it's going to taste like. The
poti
comes from the French word for pumpkin,
potiron,
and
marron
is the word for chestnut. The squash is remarkable, it's great tasting, it's beautiful, and it has a characteristic that neither pumpkins nor chestnuts have: it doesn't need to be peeled, always the most difficult task when you're dealing with hard-shelled squash. For reasons only botanists can fathom, the shell of the
potimarron
softens in cooking and becomes completely edible, a lovely culinary anomaly.

So, there I was at a French dinner party and I mentioned that I'd seen
potimarron
in the market that morning. "To me," I said, "it signals that fall is really here." "Ah, to me," said my friend Béatrix Collet, "it means I can make the first
potimarron
soup of the season." And, no sooner did she say that, than her husband, Jean-Paul, who was engaged in conversation but who must have caught the critical words
potimarron
and soup, turned, smiled, and asked if it would be that weekend. After everyone around the table sang the squash's praises, I asked Béatrix about her soup. "It's so simple, it's almost foolish to give you the recipe," she claimed, "but it's just so good, you must try it." That was on a Thursday night, and I made the soup on Friday night and have been making it ever since. It is easy in the extreme and as good as Béatrix claimed—thick, velvety, and a pretty pumpkin color, and it does, indeed, taste as though you cooked the squash with a pile of chestnuts.

Béatrix's soup has nothing in it but squash, leeks, milk, and water, and, as she said, that's
suffisant,
or sufficient. But because I'm an incorrigible tweaker, I routinely add nutmeg as a seasoning and apples and nuts as a garnish. See Bonne Idée for more ways to play around with this simple recipe, as well as how to make this soup when you can't find Red Kuri squash at the market.

TO MAKE THE SOUP:
Scrub the squash under running water, using a brush if necessary to scrape off any dirt. With a sharp chef's knife, cut off the pointy tip of the squash, then cut the squash in half from top to bottom. Scoop out the seeds and the strings that bind them, then cut the squash into 1- to 2-inch chunks, skin and all. Toss the squash into a large Dutch oven or soup pot.

Add the leeks to the pot, then add the milk and water, salt generously, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the squash is soft enough to mash when pressed lightly with the back of spoon.

Using a blender or a food processor, puree the soup, in batches if necessary, until it is very smooth; or use an immersion blender. Depending on how much liquid boiled away, you may have a thick soup and a decision to make: leave it thick (I do) or thin it to whatever consistency pleases you with more milk or more water. Taste for salt and season with pepper and nutmeg. Heat the soup if it cooled in the blender or processor or if you thinned it—this soup is at its best truly hot.

Spoon the apple and nuts into the soup bowls, if using, ladle in the soup, and garnish with the cream, if you like.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

SERVING
If you're using the apples and nuts, spoon some into the bottom of each soup bowl and ladle over the hot soup; top each with a little cream.

STORING
The soup can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days (it will thicken as it stands, so you might want to thin it when you reheat it) and for up to 2 months packed airtight in the freezer.

BONNE IDÉE
Butternut Squash and Chestnut Soup.
If you're intrigued by the flavor combination of squash and chestnuts, the pair that come packed together in Red Kuri squash, but you can't find the squash, you can use butternut squash. Choose one that's about pounds, peel and seed it, and cut into small cubes; and add 7 ounces shelled chestnuts to the mix. You can use jarred or vacuum-packed chestnuts. Look for packs of chestnut pieces—they're perfect for pureeing and less expensive than intact nuts.

ANOTHER BONNE IDÉE
You can top the soup with olive-oil-sautéed bread cubes—toss some shredded sage into the skillet along with the bread. Or top with toasted thin slices of baguette that have been sprinkled with grated cheese and run under the broiler—use a nutty cheese, like Gruyère or Emmenthal, or a blue cheese, like Gorgonzola or Roquefort. Or sauté some cooked chopped chestnuts (you can use bottled chestnuts) in a little butter or oil, season with salt and pepper and chopped fresh thyme or sage, and spoon a little over the soup or, better yet, over the crème fraîche.

A
FEW SUMMERS AGO, A VENDOR
at my farmers' market in Connecticut started selling Long Island Cheese, a pale orange, pumpkinish squash that's big, fat, and as swirly as a Bundt pan. The instant I saw the hefty wedges arranged along the table, I smiled—they looked just like the squashes that turn up in French markets when the chestnuts start falling. I was ready to exclaim about their resemblance when Michael, the farmer, who grew up in Paris, beat me to the punch: "They're just like the ones in France, aren't they?" he asked with some pride. Indeed, and they're as good for soup as their Gallic cousins.

Whichever side of the ocean I'm on, I roast the squash before I cook it in the soup. Roasting not only boosts the vegetable's flavor, it also makes it so much easier to peel.

The soup I like to make with squash (or pumpkin) is sweet, because I add pears; lightly vegetal, because of the fennel and celery; and just a little exotic, because it's seasoned with ginger, nutmeg, and cumin. I cook it with a couple of strips of orange peel, which mellow as they simmer, and give it a squirt of fresh lemon juice right before serving.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil.

If you're using a whole squash, cut it in half, scoop out the innards, and rub the exposed flesh with a little olive oil. If you're using peeled and cut squash, just toss it with a little oil. Sprinkle the squash with a pinch of salt, put it on the baking sheet, and slide it into the oven. Whole squash will need to roast for 60 to 75 minutes, cut squash for about 45 minutes. With either, trust your knife, not the clock: when you can pierce the flesh easily with the tip of the knife, it's ready to come out of the oven. As soon as the squash is cool enough to handle, peel it and cut it into cubes, about 2 inches on a side.

Warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat, then stir in the onions, Spanish and spring (or shallot). Season lightly with salt and cook for 5 minutes, or until the onions start to soften but not color. Add the fennel, celery, garlic, and a pinch more salt and cook, stirring often, for another 5 to 10 minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft but still pale. Stir in the ginger, cumin, nutmeg, 4 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds of pepper, then add the roasted squash. Pour in 5 cups broth, increase the heat, and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat so that the soup simmers gently; add the pears and orange peel. Partially cover the pot and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the pears and squash are soft enough to be mashed with the back of a spoon.

Puree the soup, in batches, in a blender or a food processor; or use an immersion blender. Taste for salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick for you, stir in up to 1 cup more broth and reheat until hot.

Ladle the soup into bowls and finish with a little lemon juice, or serve with lemon wedges. Garnish with the cream and pumpkin seeds, if you like.

MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS

SERVING
Either squeeze a little fresh lemon juice into each bowl or put a wedge of lemon next to each bowl so guests can squeeze for themselves. Finish the soup with cream and/or pumpkin seeds, or serve as is.

STORING
The soup can be kept covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or packed airtight and stored in the freezer for up to 2 months. As it chills, it will thicken, so you might want to thin it with a little broth or water when you reheat it.

I
WAS INSPIRED TO CREATE THIS SOUP
by something Pierre Herme, the wildly talented Parisian pastry chef, said to me years ago. We were working on a pear and chestnut tart, and he said, "Chestnuts have a very linear flavor," which I took as a very politic way of saying they can be bland. "And so," he continued, "they need something to give them a little sex appeal—pears!" It worked in the tart, and so, contemplating a jar of chestnuts and the winter wind rattling our kitchen windows in Paris, I figured the logic would hold for soup.

This soup, in the end, is smooth, soothing, elegant, and sexy, in a sophisticated way. Of course, you can make it with freshly roasted chestnuts, but peeled chestnuts that are dry-packed in a jar, vacuum-packed in a bag, or frozen work perfectly and help make easy work of the soup.

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or soup pot over low heat, then add the onion, leeks, and celery. Stir until the ingredients glisten with butter, season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the onion is soft but not colored.