A Marriage of Sorts

A few nights ago, we salvaged most of a giant Marina di Chioggia squash that was getting soft on one of its sides.  We roasted the thing and scaped it's dense flesh into a pot with carmelized onions and carrots and garlic.  I added skillet roasted cloves and cardamom pods ground in a molcajete, a broth made of corn cobs, sour cream, butter, yogurt, salt and pepper.  Then I puréed the mass with a hand blender til creamy.  The result was a rich, dense, cloying soup.  After a couple of bowls, we started to get tired of this rich, sweet, pudding-like purée. 

Last night I made some sausage out of ground pork, tons of ground arbol chile, a mound of ground fennel seed, lots of garlic, fresh oregano, salt and pepper.  Frying some of that up and ladling the squash soup upon the cooked, fragrant, salty sausage was a wondrous marriage.  The sugar heavy purée against the savory explosion of the pork- boom!  I think we'll finish off that pot of soup, afterall.