Squash Soup, Sagey Chestnut Dumplings

My mom's birthday is just two days away from Halloween, and inspired by the typical festivities, I knew I had to make a squash soup soon. The weekend after that was my dad's birthday, and the recipe I made for him can be seen in the previous post, which also means another week was to go by without my squash soup. I was getting very anxious about doing this recipe, because when I think of it, I think Halloween, which was rapidly being forgotten, and I saw no point in doing it during the Christmas season.  So when Saturday rolled around, I was all into it. My nearby market had just the right squash and chestnuts, half of which proved rotten though so I had to buy them twice. This was the result:

Firstly I had to see what the squash was like and what good ol' Jamie was talking about when he said to cut the neck off, trim away the stalky end and then quarter, not peel and keep the seed end for another day. Then I cut this heap in the processor with the spring onions, rosemary leaves, chili, stock cube and carrots all at once. Then I added this to a large casserole pan with a tin of chickpeas and their water. The water was just at boiling point in my heater thingy (kettle haha) so I added that too to speed up the process of cooking. 

That was to cook for a long time, so I started the chestnut dumplings. I blitzed the pre-cooked chestnuts (since you can't buy vac-packed ones in Croatia) with the flour, stock cube and a pinch of pepper in the processor, and once it was like a paste, I started adding 100ml of water, bit by bit. This made it come into a firm ball of dough. I wet my hands a bit to make it not stick, and transferred it on a flour dusted board. Now, Jamie's dumplings are pretty huge, since he split his dough into two sausage shapes. That was a little too large for me, so I split the dough into four instead of two sausage shapes, and cut that. I also kind of formed them into little sausages, played around, that's why mine don't look like Jamie's when he directly cut and cooked. I plopped all of them into a pan with boiling water and let them simmer on medium heat for 6 minutes exactly, after I tried them of course. I set them into a drainer and let them dry. This is when I took hold of the pancetta and roasted it on some olive oil with sage leaves. I like it very crispy so that is what I let happen, and then turned off the heat and popped the dumplings in the pancetta pan to sort of soak up the pancetta oils and flavorings. I left that as it was and tended to the soup which was done far before, I only turned the heat off and put it away. Now I blitzed it with a stick blender until it was totally smooth, and all the veggies fell apart right away since they're all of the soft kind if cooked through. It was still very hot, so I didn't need to reheat anything, which meant I could arrange it right away, take the pictures, and enjoy!

This recipe choice was also backed up by a squash soup I had not long ago, at "Seosko Domaćinstvo Kezele", a rural family owned restaurant with all natural produce from their own fields and all. Fall was just starting and they had squash soup on the menu which I was very eager to try for the first time and loved it! The one in this recipe wasn't my favorite, I'll be honest and say the other one was better, but my mom loved it and no one else was there to eat it so I was happy. A spoonful with some crispy pancetta and a dumpling or two was perfectly fine. 

Also, you're supposed to grate nutmeg over the dumplings, but my grandma threw it away, thinking it was trash. Moral of the story:... I can't phrase this without being politically incorrect.

 For the fall months this recipe is more than perfect, it warms the tummy with a combination of all typical fall foods, which brings a smile to any face.

To try it out, you will need:

Ingredients out * Kettle boiled * Food processor (bowl blade) * Large lidded casserole pan, medium heat * Large lidded pan, high heat * Stick blender

Serves 4, 484 calories

Ingredients

Soup
1 bunch of spring onions
a few springs of fresh rosemary
1 fresh red chili
1 chicken stock cube
olive oil
1 medium butternut squash (neck end only)
3 carrots
1 x 400g tin of chickepeas

Dumplings
100g vac-packed chestnuts
100g of self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
1 chicken stock cube
8 rashers of smoked pancetta
10 fresh sage leaves
1 whole nutmeg, for grating
optional: 30g Cheddar cheese

Start cooking 
Trim the spring onions and blitz in the processor with the rosemary leaves, chili and stock cube until fine, then put into the casserole pan with 1 tablespoon of oil. Cut the neck off the squash, trimming away the stalky end, then carefully quarter (don't peel, and keep the seed end for another day). Blitz the squash in the processor with the trimmed carrots until finely chopped. Add to the casserole pan with teh chickpeas, their water, and 1 litre of boiling water. Cover the lid and cook on high. Refill and boil the kettle.

Blitz the chestnuts, flour, stock cube and a pinch of pepper in the processo. Start adding 100ml of cold water, a splash at a time, until it just comes together as a ball of firm dough. Split the dough in half and roll each piece into a sausage shape on a flour dusted surface, then cut into 2cm chunks. Fill the large pan with boiling water, add the dumplings, cover with the lid and simmer on a medium heat for 6 minutes, or until fluffy.

Blitz the soup with the stick blender until lovely and smooth, then season to taste and simmer until ready to serve. Put the pancetta into a deep roasting tray on high heat with 1 tablespoon of oil. When it starts to crisp up, add the sage leaves. Scoop out the fluffy dumplings with a slotted spoon, toss in the tray of crispy pancetta and sage, then finely grate over half the nutmeg and serve with a grating of Cheddar, if you like.

Note: This is the recipe straight from the cookbook, for my version and alternations look above.

Bon Appétit!