RECIPE: Butternut Soup with Sage Brown Butter and Fried Sage Garnish

I just roasted some of the butternut in the farm store and it is beyond delicious - sweet and densely creamy!  Many people halve the squash, stuff it, and then eat it in chunks, but I prefer to roast it whole and then puree the flesh.  I then freeze it to use in "pumpkin" lattes, soup, and mac and cheese.   I've also served it mixed with butter, ancho powder, and toasted pecans as a side for Friendsgiving, instead of sweet potatoes, but I haven't published the recipe.  Perhaps I'll do that next week....

If you've never had fried sage...it's amazing!  Crunchy and salty, it's the perfect garnish wherever sage is used in a recipe.  Either the fat oval sage or the thinner sage will work here.  Use what you can get!

Butternut Soup with Sage Brown Butter and Fried Sage Garnish

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 oz butter
• 12 sage leaves
• 2 cups minced yellow onions
• 4 cups butternut puree (roasted whole and then pureed)
  
• 2 cups beef broth
• 2/3 cup heavy cream  
• Salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS:

Melt the butter over medium heat in a 4-quart sauce pan.

Add the sage leaves and fry them, turning once or twice, until the butter solids turn brown.  Watch carefully as they will go from brown to burned in an instant!

Turn off the heat, remove the sage leaves to paper towels, and sprinkle them with salt

Remove half the browned butter, including half the solids, and set aside.

Return the heat under the pan to medium high, add the onions, and saute until they start to brown.

Stir in the pumpkin and the broth and whisk to combine.

When the soup is steaming, add the cream and salt to taste.

When the soup returns to steaming, turn off the heat and serve, drizzled with the reserved brown butter and 2-3 fried sage leaves per bowl. 

NOTE: we like this soup chunky.  Feel free to puree it with an immersion blender if you prefer a smooth puree.