As you know during our cooking class in Lyon with Chef Villard, we made a wonderful meal and Chef was kind enough to provide the recipes for the dishes we made together in his kitchen. The next few postings will reflect the dishes that we made as we recreated the meal for our good friends Barb and Kevin (Profiteroles and Ponytails).
Of course, I was not able to obtain some of the ingredients, so I had to improvise, but all in all, it turned out very well and I really enjoyed it (I hope our guests did too!)
The Improvised Menu:
• Escargot en chou •
• Pumpkin velouté scented with vanilla with EVOO sautéed wild mushrooms and seared scallops with hazelnut oil drizzle •
• Halibut wrapped in Prosciutto with a black olive beef stock sauce, new potatoes sautéed in EVOO and snap peas with arugula (rocket) pesto •
• Pear and milk chocolate clafoutis with home made caramel sauce •
I’m starting off with the pumpkin velouté because I’ve already posted about our starter, so please feel free to click on the link. Of course, hosting a dinner party with a complex menu and taking photos for the blog don’t actually go well together so instead of delaying dinner for our lovely guests, I served this soup again the next night when my nephew Brian was over for a much more casual dinner and was able to easily snap a pic without inconvenience.
Now, as usual I have made the recipe a little healthier and did not use the called for cream, but if you wish to make it yourself, please go ahead and indulge. I will also caveat that I made some preparation changes to the way Chef Villard made his soup; I oven roasted the pumpkin because all I was able to get was pie pumpkins and they tend not to be as sweet as the pumpkin that Chef Villard used, so I felt roasting would coax the sugars out of it more than just boiling. As well, our mushrooms were just ordinary wild mushrooms and not the intended trumpet mushrooms which are delicately earthy so I sautéed my wild mushrooms in butter to try to temper the strong earthiness of the wild ones! And last but not least, I roasted an entire head of garlic and added that to the soup because I like roasted garlic better than just cooked garlic. Otherwise, it’s exactly the same 😉
Pumpkin Velouté with Sautéed Wild Mushrooms and Scallops with Hazelnut Oil
Makes 8 servings
Ingredients:
- 600 g pumpkin (butternut squash would also work very well in this recipe
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp EVOO
- 600 mL chicken stock (home made or low sodium if store bought)
- 1/2 of a vanilla bean pod
- 150 mL Carnation Light Evaporated Milk (or heavy cream)
- 1 head of garlic
- 3 tbsp EVOO
- 12 Scallops
- 200 g wild mushrooms (or trumpet mushrooms)
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed flat (not small pieces, you want it whole enough to extract before serving).
- 1 tbsp hazelnut oil
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 175° C or 350° F
- Peel and chop the pumpkin to 2-3 cm (1 inch) cubes, drizzle with olive oil and bake until fork tender.
- Peel off all of the skin from the garlic so only the individual cloves have their skin on. Put in a small ramekin and add about 3 tbsp EVOO and sea salt and bake until fork tender.
- In a large soup pot, add 2 tbsp EVOO and sweat out the onions until tender. Add the chicken stock and vanilla pod and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds and add it back to the pot.
- Add the roasted garlic and pumpkin and cook for about 6 minutes. Blend until very smooth with an immersion blender and press through a fine sieve. Set aside.
- Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the mushrooms and garlic clove and sautée until the mushrooms are tender. Set aside.
- Heat a frying pan up so and add a splash of olive oil. Dry off the scallops and fry each side until golden.
- Process the soup one more time with the immersion blender to aerate it.
- Plating: using either a large rimmed soup bowl or a small soup cup, add equal portions to the centre of each bowl. Spoon the soup around the mushrooms, garnish with scallop(s) and hazelnut oil.
- Enjoy.
Chef’s Notes:
Chef Villard was kind enough to pass along his experience and give us a few restaurant hints, that I would love to share with you:
- Process creamed soups again just before serving to aerate it, Chef Villard mentioned that this makes the soup extra light.
- When cooking any type of protein, it’s important to make sure that the thickness is even thoughout otherwise the thin bits will over cook while you finish cooking the thicker bits. So if you have a piece of fish with a thin tail end, fold it back over the next thickest part to even out the entire fishes thickness. Wrapping with prosciutto helps hold it together.
Oh Eva, look at you… you’re so darling 🙂
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You are far too sweet, Fati, thank you so very much.
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What a great looking soup! Do you have any suggestions for making it with a milk substitute? Do you think coconut milk or almond milk would work with this recipe?
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Thanks again, Amber. Hmm, coconut milk might change the entire flavouring, but the Thai do use it in a version of this soup. I think almond might be a better substitute, but then change out the hazelnut oil as garnish for almond oil to tie it together. Let me know if you try it.
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I would love this sort of soup.. the presentation is so pretty too! I really loved your photo.. you’ve such a cute smile on next to the chef!
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Thanks Smidge. I’m a bit of a chef groupie!
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Hi Eva, that soup looks amazing – such a rich colour and it sounds so darn “gourmet” too. My friend is having a hallowe’en party and I passed on this recipe to her, although her first comment when she saw it was “oh my God, it sounds so complicated” (she doesn’t cook much, bless her :p).
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Thanks you Charles, I’ll type out the recipe from Chef Villard which boils the pumpkin in the stock and email it to you, much fewer steps!
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Eva, I adore scallops (my favourite sea food by far) and this recipe looks out of this world delicious. My kind of eats too – nourishing without feeling stuffed. Perfect.
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Hi Kelly, the sweetness of the scallops complimented the earthy mushrooms and the background vanilla in the soup really balanced the flavours nicely.
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This really does look amazing! and I like Chefs tip about aerating the soup =)
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Thank you kindly Squishy Monster.
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May I volunteer to come eat at your house after your next European holiday? Wow, what a feast…your soup looks incredibly delicious!!! Can’t wait to see the next recipe 🙂
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Oh Liz, you are most welcome at my place! Thank you kindly, I’m very flattered.
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Mmmm! You do know how to treat your guests Eva! This looks out of this world. All of my favorite flavors in fact. I really wish I had this for lunch today. 😉
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Oh Kristy, you’re kind words mean so much to me, thank you.
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This is a truly amazing and elegant looking dish, Eva! And thank you for offering the substitution of butternut squash for the pumpkin…I was going to ask about that until I saw you’d covered it…for those of us who can’t eat pumpkin. I may have to try this with the butternut. How fun it must have been to take that class and I know you’re enjoying making the dishes here at home. 🙂
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Thank you kindly Betsy. Too bad you can’t eat pumpkin, this time of year it’s in everything!
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Seriously Eva…I’m not hungry and oh so hungry right now. This sounds tremendous and hits on so many points of pleasure for me, especially the hazelnut oil. 🙂
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Now that is some compliment, Jed, thank you kindly. It was a harmony of beautiful flavours that’s for sure.
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Gorgeous and decadent looking soup with the scallops and wild mushrooms. I especially love the presentation in the two handled bowl.
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Thank you kindly Maria.
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I know I’m going to hell but I’d never omit the cream 🙂 Looks fab, Eva.
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I struggle with super rich foods so it’s not often an option for me. But good for you! Thank you for the lovely compliment Maureen.
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How impressive Eva! The complexity of the flavors are treated so beautifully that it does not even look complex. Incredible! Beautifully presented too.
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Thanks so much Minnie that is so lovely of you to say.
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That’s a 5-star pumpkin recipe 😉 Love your presentation with that lovely soup cup.
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Thanks so much Angie, I had the left overs for lunch yesterday and it was as tasty as on Saturday!
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Love your presentation in the soup cup, so upscale (I have a set of similar soup cups), Agree that roasting the pumpkin and garlic brings out the sweetness. Why not light cream instead of canned evaporated milk? Must remember chef’s tips.
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Thanks Norma, I used cream in a few other components in the menu so I wanted to balance the heaviness in the dinner and the evaporated milk (not to be confused with sweetened evaporated milk) was a good solution for it because it is far less caloric. We used heavy cream in the original in Lyon and from my unsophisticated taste, substituting the cream did not compromise the flavour for me (but I am not a heavy cream type of person).
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I give you so much credit, Eva, for making time for classes while you’re on holiday. This velouté is one souvenir you and your dinner guests will enjoy for years to come. Chef Villard would be proud to see how elegantly you presented his dish. 🙂
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Thank you for your flattering and kind words John. I was thinking about sending Chef a link to my blog so he can see our versions! I’ll have to wait until I can get a good picture of the fish dish, since it was already pitch dark when I served it.
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I seriously think you should send chef the link.
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Thank you Norma, I’m seriously considering it.
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The velouté looks beautiful, elegant and delicious. You have presented it like a real professional chef! I do envy your lucky guests 🙂
(Now I want to run and buy some scallops! You have made me crave them so much and since they start to be in season in France…)
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The scallops are so incredibly sweet and tender and paired wonderfully well with the soup and earthiness of the mushrooms.
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This looks like a wonderful soup-although for home, I would do as you did and omit the cream 😀
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Hi Lorraine, yes, when you eat out as much as you and I do, it’s best to mitigate as much as possible at home.
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Oh evaporated milk. I always have that on hand and it always stays on hand because I never use it. This looks fantastic.
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That’s funny Greg…we started using it because I can sometimes find cream just to rich for the delicate tummy. You can use a much lower fat cream too if you don’t have the same issues.
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Excellent post Eva. I love the word Velouté. It’s so much more appetising than “soup” brilliant flavour combos too.
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Thanks so much David, and welcome to my blog. I’m afraid my recipes will not be nearly as “show stopping” as your game recipes, but they are tasty!
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Stunning is an understatement when you think about how incredibly complex the flavours of this recipe are as well as the beautiful presentation 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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Wow! That is quite a compliment, thank you kindly CCU!
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Who wouldn’t love this spectacular dinner? Kevin and I have been raving about this dinner for days now. Every dish was as delicious as it was beautiful. We both particularly liked the hint of vanilla in this soup — it pairs wonderfully with the pumpkin and it is quite unexpected. When you post the other recipes … I may not be able to comment as my laptop died last night and I am traveling today and tomorrow. 😦
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Thanks Barb, I am very glad that you both enjoyed it, it was fun to recreate!
Sorry about your laptop, that sucks. Have a safe trip.
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That soup and your presentation of it looks amazing Eva. And I totally agree with you that photographing food during a dinner party is quite the challenge. I prefer my garlic sweetened too so I think that’s a great idea to roast it xx
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Hi Charlie, we have an open style kitchen, so I can’t even sneak a shot in once dinner has started. But the lighting these days is brutal anyway so it’s best I recreate it on a weekend when I can shoot in the morning!
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