General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do People Hate Vegans? [View all]KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)proven carcinogen (due mostly to the nitrates and smoke). I like the crunch factor on this soup because without it it can lean toward a baby food-like consistency.
My soup is based loosely on Tom Valenti's and he uses pancetta. Mostly I wanted to do a soup that wasn't sweet on sweet so the roasting, and a little smoke from the bacon was appealing here. I enjoy the challenge and some of the results of doing vegan versions of savory soups. Valenti has another soup I absolutely love which is a split pea with pancetta and chicken stock that gets topped with garlic croutons and one drizzle of olive oil. I made that one with veg stock and roasted carrots in place of the pancetta and it is was equally good but in slightly different direction. A little lighter and cleaner in taste than the pancetta version.
I want to try grinding the toasted squash seeds down to a butter and stirring that in to the soup to get more of the nutty flavor and extend the essence of butternut squash. I like your idea for the toasted pecans because that would help me extend and enhance the natural nuttiness of the squash. Thanks for the idea!