Spiced roasted butternut pumpkin soup – two ways

I love soups. And it makes so much sense to make a giant pot of soup, have it as leftovers, or even freeze those that are suitable.

My problem is that I don’t always seem to want soup from the freezer, and often end up throwing it away. It’s very un-frugal of me and the waste upsets me.

Over the weekend I found a beautiful butternut squash – at $2 instead of the $10+ that I spend across the road for the same thing. Of course I just had to buy it.

I decided that I would do two types of soup with it, to try to give some variety, and hope to tickle my tastebuds enough to want to eat it again. And again.

The first way was to push a ladleful of it through a fine sieve, yielding the most silkily smooth soup that reminds me of the amouse-bouches that you sometimes get in fine restaurants. It’s such a treat and I don’t know why but the same soup seems to taste sweeter somehow ?

The second way was to keep it rustic (the sieving also takes time and any time saving is a good thing, right ?). This leftover I’ve frozen, but when I reheat it, I’ll add a dollop of cream and a glug of good olive oil to make it taste like the best pumpkin soup I’ve ever had.

Roasting the pumpkin intensifies the sugars and flavour and the spices just add an extra dimension to the soup.

Ingredients makes four bowls of soup

1. 1 large onion, diced
2. 1 medium sized butternut pumpkin
3. salt and pepper
4. ground tumeric
5. ground cumin
6. chicken stock
7. thick cream
8. good olive oil to serve

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 220CC/430F
2. Remove skin and seeds from pumpkin and cut into chunks
3. Coat with olive oil (doesn’t need to be the good stuff) and season with salt and pepper
4. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes
5. Sautee onion in some olive oil on low heat until translucent – about 5 minutes
6. Add the tumeric and cumin and fry off the “rawness” of the spices for another 5 minutes
7. Add the roasted pumpkin and add enough chicken stock to cover the pumpkin
8. Simmer for 30 minutes
9. Blend with an immersion blender until desired consistency (I like to keep it relatively smooth but still with some bits of pumpkin)
10. Option 1: Take a ladleful and push through a fine sieve and serve with just a few drops of good olive oil
11. Option 2: Serve hot, with a big dollop of cream, and a good glug of the good olive oil