Pumpkin Veloute

Pumpkin soup originated in France. The French developed several recipes and even a fancy way to serve the soup as noted in the British translated 1812 Professed Cook... Many pumpkin varieties can be used for soup. Red kuri squash, sugar pie squash and honeynut squash are among the best. I used them all in this recipe (70% red kuri squash / 30% sugar pie & honeynut squash for garnishing). The Red Kuri skin is hard but thin, and is edible once cooked. It has creamy yellow flesh, with a smooth texture and taste similar to cooked chestnuts. Sugar Pie Pumpkin are tender and buttery with a sweet, earthy, and nutty flavor. Honeynut squash is small in size, averaging 10-13 centimeters in length, and has the traditional bell shape of a butternut squash. The flesh is firm, moist, and orange with a small cavity in the bulbous end of the squash filled with stringy pulp and a few flat, cream-colored seeds. Once harvested, Honeynut squash is cured up to three weeks in a temperature-controlled setting, which allows for the sugars to condense within the flesh and the skin to harden. When cooked, is tender and creamy with a sweet, nutty, caramel, and malt-like flavor. Roasting pumpkins / squashes prior to cooking with the liquid, enriched the whole dish. The use of heavy cream in pumpkin soups is not necessary. I rather prefer using butter, a powerful mixer will smooth that out to the perfection.