Thai Pumpkin Soup

smooth as Thai silk soup

Pumpkin and coconut have an incredible affinity and the result is not only an extraordinary taste but a silky smooth texture too.

The method is simplicity itself. The roasting makes life easy (no peeling and chopping a hard uncooked pumpkin) and deepens the flavor at the same time so really there is very little to do except blitz and season. Once the pumpkin is roasted the soup takes just minutes.

Ingredients:  This will create 4-6 main course “meal” servings and 8-12 starter servings
1 medium pumpkin,
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic chopped roughly
2 tbsp olive oil,
50g ginger, peeled chopped finely
1 jar of Green Thai Curry paste
1 liter chicken or vegetable stock
200ml Coconut milk
How To
Preheat oven to 180C
1. Cut the pumpkin in half, or if a really big pumpkin into quarters. Place on a baking tin and bake. Nothing else needed at this stage – any aromatic expensive olive oil is just going to evaporate off so just leave it naked to bake.
2. Chop the onion up roughly (nobody is going to report you to the onion chopping police because the soup is blitzed up) and fry in the same pan you will make the soup in, just gently until translucent. Add the garlic and fry very gently. Add the ginger. Add the green thai curry mix. Fry gently but do not brown.
3. When your pumpkin is cooked (approx 45mins-1 hour) a knife will slice through it like butter. Leave to cool until you can handle the heat. Scoop out the seeds and discard (or if you feel virtuous, place them on baking paper to dry at 90C so you have your own pumpkin seeds to eat). Scoop out the flesh which will be smooth and soft and place in the pan with the onions and spices. If you are using carrots add them now. (Note that this same flesh can be used for pumpkin pie and for pumpkin cup cakes, so if you have loads and loads – freeze it!)

4. Add 1 liter of your stock (if it’s made with a cube it wont be the end of the world) and bring to a boil.
5. Blitz your soup until it is completely smooth. Add the coconut milk.
6. Serve in large bowls sprinkled with the roasted pumpkin seeds scattered over the top