Nigel Slater’s autumn vegetable soup and ricotta with amaretti recipes (2024)

I made the first big soup of the season this week, a minestrone of sorts, with the sweetness of golden squash, made substantial enough for a main course with little beads of orzo. A soup of diced vegetables is grounding and frugal, and the best way of using up a rag-bag of odd vegetables I know. Its freshness, when the green beans still have a spring in their step, is beguiling. But I like it almost more the following day, when the jumble of vegetables has spent a night in the fridge and the pasta has thickened the texture. There is a harmony that develops overnight.

By chance, a short stay in the fridge improved one of the week’s puddings, too. I like the lightness of ricotta, the soft curd cheese used to fill cassata, the fancy Sicilian cake shaped like a dome. Made from the whey left behind after cheese making, ricotta’s cool, milky character makes it ideal for ending a meal. It needs little embellishment: a spoonful of wild flower honey perhaps, trickled over the snow-white curds; a folding-in of chopped dark chocolate; a stick of angelica, finely diced; the grated orange zest and pistachios that have been pounded almost to sweet rubble.

A spoonful of ricotta is something to eat alongside a fig, plump and crunchy with seeds, or to spread on a slice of hot, toasted brioche, but it is also a useful blank canvas for the cook. I made a dessert of ricotta sweetened with diced crystallised fruits, a thread of bitter chocolate and with crushed amaretti through it. We spread half the fruit and biscuit-studded cream on to crisp biscuits and left the rest overnight in the fridge.

What I found the next morning was akin to a trifle but lighter, the amaretti no longer crisp but as sweetly sodden as trifle sponge, the texture had thickened. It reminded me of something my mum used to make, where she crumbled gingernuts into whipped cream and let them soften overnight. This then, must be the grown up version.

Something crisp is required here. I suggest Belgian waffle biscuits. Lacking any, I snapped a sheet of dark chocolate over the pudding instead, encrusted with chopped orange peel and toasted flaked almonds. It crackled as we dug into the soft, almond-scented cream beneath.

Autumn vegetable soup with orzo

A humble, good-natured soup. Swap vegetables as the need takes you. Carrots instead of swede; courgettes for butternut; a leek in place of onion.

Serves 6
onion 1, medium
swede 200g
celery 1 rib
olive oil 3 tbsp
butternut squash or pumpkin 300g
rosemary 1 tsp leaves
garlic 4 cloves
thyme 10 sprigs
tomatoes 3, large
white wine 80ml
vegetable stock 1 litre
green beans 250g
orzo 80g

Peel the onion and swede. Cut them and the celery, into small dice. Warm the olive oil in a deep heavy-based pan over a moderate heat, then add the chopped vegetables, stirring them to coat with oil.

Peel the pumpkin or butternut, discard the seeds and fibres, then cut into small dice and add to the pan. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely chop the rosemary, add to the pan with the garlic, a pinch of salt and the sprigs of thyme, then leave to cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

Chop the tomatoes into small pieces (discard the seeds if you wish, but I prefer not to) then add to the pan, with the white wine. Pour in the stock, lower the heat so the soup simmers gently, then partially cover with a lid and leave to cook for 30 minutes until the swede and pumpkin are soft enough to crush easily between your finger and thumb.

Cut the green beans into short lengths (about 2cm) then add to the pan, with the orzo. Turn the heat up and leave to cook for 10 minutes until the pasta is tender and almost soft. Check the seasoning – you will need pepper and a little salt – and serve.

Ricotta with amaretti and crystallised fruit

Don’t feel obliged to hunt out hazelnut chocolate, but I do think the tiny nibs of roasted hazelnut contribute to the texture.

In a chilled bowl, whip the cream until thick. Stop beating when it is thick enough to sit in soft mounds. Add the ricotta to the bowl. Crumble the amaretti into large, rough pieces and add to the cream.

Cut the crystallised peel and cherries into small dice, then add to the bowl, folding the cream, ricotta, amaretti crumbs and fruit together. Take care not to overmix.

Place a mixing bowl over a small pan of simmering water, then break the hazelnut chocolate into the bowl, and leave to melt, without stirring.

When the chocolate is liquid, remove from the heat, then fold briefly and gently into the amaretti cream, leaving ribbons of chocolate running through the cream. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or, better still, overnight.

Melt the chocolate for the decoration as before. Pour on to a lightly oiled tray. Scatter over the chopped candied peel and almonds. Leave in the fridge until the chocolate has set crisp then break into shards and serve with the amaretti cream.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater