Pumpkin Soup Recipe

Pumpkin soups can be delicious hearty meals given their high nutritional content. Having a bowl of golden-yellow creamy soup at the end of a hectic day is pure comfort.

Pair pumpkin soup with croutons or bread

Pumpkin soups are easy to make, albeit time consuming. 3 basic steps are involved, roasting, boiling and blending. Inspiration of this soup was drawn from Noobcook.

(serves 4)

Ingredients

700g of pumpkin with seeds (I bought a pre-cut slice from NTUC at about $1.50)

10 garlic cloves

1 onion (I used a purple onion but white/yellow onion will do)

600ml chicken stock (I used 1 cube of Maggi chicken stock, less sodium dissolved in 600ml of plain water)

20g unsalted butter

Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

Method

1. Wash, remove skin and chop the pumpkin into small chucks. Peel and wash garlic cloves and leave them whole. Arrange pumpkin and garlic on oven pan and drizzle olive oil, sprinkle salt and black pepper over. Roast in pre-heated oven of 210 degrees, top rack for 35-40 minutes or until soft. You should be able to break apart the pumpkin easily with a fork.

2. Melt butter in saucepan and sauté sliced onion till soft. Add in 600ml of water and 1 cube of chicken stock. Mix well and once water begins to boil, add in roasted pumpkin and onion.

3. Simmer for about 5-10 minutes and leave to cool for 15 minutes. Pour mixture into blender in 3 batches to  purée the soup. 

4. If needed, season soup further with black pepper or salt before serving. Do not over season as there is already salt, black pepper and chicken stock in the soup

Tips

Raw pumpkins has thick skin so use a strong short knife to trim away the skin and to chop up the flesh.

Instead of using chicken stock cubes, you can use tetra-packed ready-made chicken stock like Heinz or Swanson, However, I find that troublesome as I will end up with left-over chicken stock as they usually come in 1L or 400ml. Home-made chicken broth or vegetable are also great options. If you are short of any of those, normal water will do too.

Baking or roasting pumpkins brings out the flavour better and reduces the boiling time which saves gas. If you do not have an oven, you can boil the pumpkin slices till soft in chicken stock. This will probably take you 45 minutes to 1h. Be sure to keep your eye on the stove when the soup is boiling away.

Adding in herbs will enhance the taste of the soup, for instance, parsley, thyme or rosemary.

The consistency of the soup depends on how much stock/water is used. If you like a "thinner" soup, add in more stock/plain water. 

The soup keeps well in the fridge for about 3 days in an airtight container or container covered with cling wrap.