Rampicante Squash Soup
Silky roasted winter-squash soup made from mature tan Rampicante with onion, cream, and nutmeg.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds mature tan Rampicante squash
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- to taste salt and pepper
Method
- Heat oven to 400°F (205°C) and line a baking sheet.
- Halve the squash, scoop the seeds, and roast cut side down for 40 minutes until the flesh is soft.
- Melt the butter in a pot and cook the onion and garlic gently until sweet and translucent.
- Scoop the roasted flesh into the pot and pour in the stock, then simmer for 10 minutes.
- Puree the soup until completely smooth with an immersion blender.
- Stir in the cream and nutmeg, season with salt and pepper, and warm through without boiling.
Left on the vine to ripen from green to tan, Rampicante stops being a summer squash and cures into a sweet, nutty keeper that eats just like butternut.
That mature flesh is dense and dry enough to roast down into a genuinely silky soup, with none of the wateriness that keeps ordinary summer squash out of the pot.
It is the one trombone squash on the farm that carries the garden clear into winter.