Simple Creamy Pumpkin Soup

October 14, 2008

This creamy pumpkin soup recipe is supposed to be easy, and for most of you, it will be. It’s actually a very tasty soup – much better than the list of ingredients makes it appear. My struggle simply came in getting the pumpkin open – it had a rock hard shell around the outside. Maybe this was a different kind of pumpkin than the ones I used to carve as a kid. I don’t know, but I don’t remember my pumpkins having a quarter inch thick hard shell.

Well, if you can manage to open your pumpkin, whatever variety you have, this recipe is easy and delicious. As I’ve learned with my other vegetable puree soups, it is probably best served as a side dish.

The Process

All I had was a small pumpkin (you’ll want about two pounds of finished, chopped pumpkin, so choose a size based on that), six cloves of garlic, three cups of chicken broth, one cup of water (you can use all water if you want), and three or four slices of crustless stale bread. Oh, salt and pepper too of course.

Preparing my mise en place was a pain in the rear end, though it hopefully won’t be for you. I first tried cutting into my pumpkin with a chef’s knife – didn’t work. It didn’t cut at all. I then tried peeling it, both with a paring knife and a vegetable peeler. The vegetable peeler did remove the outer orange, but did not make it any easier to get into the pumpkin. I then tried a trick my mom suggested – I cut slices in the top with a paring knife (just stabbed it in and pulled it back out), then microwaved it for about four minutes. She suggested two, but two didn’t work. Neither did four. I finally tried sawing into it with a serrated steak knife. This is what my pumpkin looked like after all this:

Kind of sad, yes? I finally tried a suggestion from my girlfriend: boiling it. I stuck it in a big pot and turned up the heat. In total, I probably let it boil a good fifteen minutes. This didn’t help…much.

The shell was still ridiculously hard, but I managed to stab in my serrated steak knife. With the knife in, I was able to saw down and finally pull off a side of the pumpkin. Huzzah!

I scooped out the seeds and stringy bits, pulled off the actual pumpkin from the shell of the free piece, then simply scooped out the actual pumpkin from inside the shell. It wasn’t worth trying to cut it anymore. With my pumpkin free, I cut it into chunks and set it aside.  Anyway, your goal is to get out the good pumpkin and cut it up.   On a side note, the pumpkin on the inside was already quite soft. It had been cooked partially by the boiling.

The rest of the mise en place only entails peeling the cloves of garlic and opening a couple cans of chicken broth.

To make the soup, I just added my pumpkin, garlic, three cups of broth, and one cup of water to a large pot. I turned the heat to medium-high and let it come to a boil. Once boiling, I gave it a stir and turned it down to medium-low. You want it to simmer until the pumpkin becomes very soft. The recipe recommends about 30 minutes, but since I had previously boiled my pumpkin, it only took 10 to 15 minutes.

When the pumpkin was soft, I tore my bread into pieces, added it to the pot, and cooked it for about five more minutes.

I removed the whole thing from the heat then pureed it with an immersion blender right in the pot. If you are using a normal blender, cool the soup first some, or it could be dangerous.

With my soup pureed, I just seasoned it with salt and pepper, garnished with a few parsley leaves then served.

Tips

• What’s the deal with super hard pumpkin shells?
• If you can get your pumpkin open, this recipe is really easy and could impress some people if served as a side dish.
• Do serve it as a side dish – it’s not hearty enough to satisfy as a full meal.

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds pumpkin, peeled, seeded, cut into 1″ chunks
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled
• 4 cups liquid – any combination of water and chicken broth/stock
• 4 slices stale, crustless bread
• Salt and pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Prepare your mise en place. Add the pumpkin, garlic, and liquid to a large pot. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
2. Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium-low. Let it simmer until the pumpkin is very soft – about 30 minutes.
3. Tear the bread into pieces and add it to the soup. Cook it for about five minutes with the bread.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and puree the soup with an immersion blender. Or cool the soup slightly and puree in a food mill or normal blender.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve.

This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.

Posted in Failures, Recipes |