Soupa, soupa, soupa

More soup!  It is the time of year for soup.  We had a great event today with soup for 2,050 people (nope, not a typo it's 2,050), that equals 160 gallons plus 100 loaves of bread and 12 large batches of cookies.  For the soup we offered a choice of Chicken and Wild Rice with Vegetables or Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque.

A bisque is a smooth cream soup that is thickened with a roux (flour and butter mixture).  The mass of the soup is made up of a “meaty” material, two of my favorites are Butternut Squash or Tomatoes (you know our tomato bisque). 

Here is the recipe I used for the bisque  It yields approximately 5 gallons (which is as big of a pot as I wanted to lift).

6 cups of diced Onions – caramelized in ½ c olive oil
1 lbs butter
2 cup Flour
Melt the butter, whisk in the flour, then cook slowly till bubbly and sandy in texture

30 lbs Squash (you can use butternut, acorn, baking pumpkin, banana squash)
Split the squash into handlable size pieces (what we use comes in really big pieces 40-50 lbs each)
Place flesh side down on a baking sheet or dish (you want one with edges since it might leak a bit)
Roast till very fork tender
Allow to cool then prep for soup
Seed and peel (yields the 25 lbs you need for the soup)

4 gallons of roasted vegetable stock or chicken broth
½ cup honey (depending on how sweet the squash is)
Salt and pepper to taste
Place all ingredients in a large pot, use emersion blender to puree
Place on stove and cook slowly until it boils
Finish with 8 cups of heavy cream

Bring to a boil before serving


For home this might be a better size recipe  ;)
½ cup onions
1.5 Tbl Flour
1.5 Tbl butter
2.5 lbs raw squash
5 cups of stock
2 tsp honey
Salt and pepper
4 oz whipping cream

Enjoy
A