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comment by Devac
Devac  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Fall Food Grubski - I made Butternut Squash Soup

Damn, it sure looks yummy. Unfortunately I couldn't find any butternut squash in nearby grocery shops. Do you think that substituting it with something like avocado would work?

    So what fall foods are you making?

I had attempted to make apple-cranberry pie. 'Attempted' being operative word because I made too moist filling it collapsed into itself like a black hole. If anyone could benefit from my failure: you probably can't decant too much juice from apples.





coffeesp00ns  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're in the EU, right? Squash can be hard to get there because it's native to North and South America. A similar soup could be made with carrot (like a curried carrot soup) or turnips/rutabagas, occasionally called a "swede".

OftenBen  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suggest sweet potatoes.

Devac  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yup, Poland to be precise. I didn't know that it's a fruit native to Americas, just looked-up possible translations (dynia piżmowa if anyone wants to attempt saying it :P). Bit shame, but I'll go with your substitutes instead. Thanks!

ThurberMingus  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There are two main categories of squash - summer squash, and winter (or hard) squash. Almost any of the winter squashes will make good soup. So if you find acorn squash, red kuri squash, or pumpkin, give those a try. However, pumpkins come in two varieties also - those grown for size, and those grown for eating. The small pumpkins taste best.

As far as substitutes - I think coffeesp00ns suggestion of carrots would be great, they will go well with the ginger in the recipe. I haven't made soup with sweet potatoes though, so I can't imagine what it would be like, but it's certainly worth trying.

    I had attempted to make apple-cranberry pie. ... I made too moist filling it collapsed into itself like a black hole

Call it a dessert soup. Sounds tasty!

Devac  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks, I'll try the carrot version then.

    Call it a dessert soup. Sounds tasty!

Hah. Honestly it wasn't tasting bad, but it looks and texture while eating… euch. It was closer to beef jerky than pie due to chewiness, but not as thick and congealed as fudge.

And no, I didn't add any sugar into the filling. :/

ThurberMingus  ·  2733 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I have only made an apple pie once. The recipe for the filling was just apples, sugar, and berries. And it cooked for ~45 minutes so the apples got soft and some of the juice from the apples dissolved all the sugar. It sounds like it may have been cooked too long, or maybe apples acted very different without sugar. I'm no expert though.

Devac  ·  2732 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I'm no expert though.

Me neither, unfortunately. Although I can hazard a guess chemistry-wise. I think that my failure was a combination of:

- crust that wasn't porous enough to allow quick enough escape for water that was effectively 'soaking it in' ;

- too high moisture to begin with;

- using apples of the sour variety that changed pH to more acidic (I never really liked sweets);

- possibly too high temperature;

that as a result allowed much more glucose/fructose to caramelise and seal the lower part of crust. And since most of the water was removed from the top crust, it probably was unable to bake properly inside, while getting all that 'too much Millard reaction' tinge on me.

I'm perhaps talking out of my arse, but so far my cooking was 90% chemistry and 10% wondering WTF went wrong. ;)