They can be roasted, mashed or made into a pie. But it’s pumpkin soup that Aussies can’t go past.
Looking for the perfect pumpkin soup? You can find our classic creamy pumpkin soup recipe here,and Matt Preston’s elevated French pumpkin soup recipe below.
As a nation we are rather unique in our love of pumpkin soup. The French cook it but it doesn’t feature as prominently in their kitchens as a bouillabaisse or a bisque. Americans do it too, but the soup is a poor cousin to the far more popular pumpkin pie. And the Korean hobakjuk is as much pumpkin porridge as soup.
Here in Australia, however, pumpkin is regularly the most searched soup on recipe websites – a little weird as it is ridiculously easy to do. Like any smooth vegetable soup it’s essentially combining a cooked kilo of the veg in question with a litre of a suitable stock (vegetable for my vegetarian friends, or chicken for all but the most robust soups).
So here is the world’s simplest four ingredient pumpkin soup, plus ideas to lift it from ordinary to extraordinary.
The simplest pumpkin soup
Dice and cook 3 medium brown onions and 4 minced garlic cloves in a little olive oil and butter over a low heat. When soft, add 2kg peeled and chopped chunks of pumpkin. Stir, then add 2L stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft. Blend the contents of the pan to your required smoothness and season to taste. Serve with a swirl of pouring cream. This makes enough soup for eight serves – enough for a meal for four now and another for the freezer.
The rule of blending
Don’t rush: You can’t blend undercooked pumpkin smooth no matter how hard you try. So wait until your veg is soft all the way through.
Cool off: Inspirational food writer Nigel Slater believes cooling a little before blending makes for a finer puree.
The right equipment: A standing liquidiser gives a finer puree than using a stick blender, but both will do the job.
Top texture: Add more liquid for a runnier soup. This could be more stock, cream, milk or even coconut milk.
Let off some steam: If using a standing liquidiser, remove the central spigot in the lid and cover with a tea towel to let the steam escape. If you don’t do this, you risk soup exploding all over the kitchen.
Strain for perfection: To get your soup even smoother, pass it through a fine rounded sieve.
Cooking it
I like to roast wedges of pumpkin which helps to reduce the moisture content, making it taste richer and sweeter. You can flavour the pumpkin at this point by rubbing it with a spice of choice. Place a couple of halved onions to cook with the pumpkin to either use in the soup or as a garnish.
Instead of roasting, you can also simmer in the liquid you will blend in.
Flavouring and garnishing
Thai Pumpkin Soup
To the onions, add 1tbs minced galangal (or ginger), 1tbs minced lemongrass, and the cleaned, chopped roots and stalks of a small bunch of coriander. Cook in a little coconut fat or peanut oil. Add shredded lime leaves and 1 tbs grated palm sugar to the onion mix once softened. Cook for a minute before adding the pumpkin. Toss to coat, then add the stock.
After blending, season to taste, stir in a cup of coconut milk and garnish with a squeeze of lime, some sliced red chilli and coriander leaves.
Australian Pumpkin Soup
For a brighter, lighter soup, roast a couple of Granny Smith apples cut into wedges along with your pumpkin and a couple of onions. Then include these with the roast pumpkin when blending your soup with chicken stock.
Garnish this with a dollop of creme fraiche, some batons of fresh apple tossed in lemon juice and a couple of sage leaves that have been crisped up in a frypan in (what will become brown) butter and a little nutmeg.
French Pumpkin Soup
Roast 1kg peeled pumpkin chunks with 5 garlic cloves, 2 halved red onions and 5 sprigs thyme. Discard the thyme. Squeeze out the garlic and flesh of the onions and puree with the pumpkin and 1L warm vegetable stock. Pass through a sieve, season, warm and serve topped with a dollop of creme fraiche, fresh thyme leaves and crushed toasted hazelnuts.
Caribbean Pumpkin Soup
The first record of pumpkin soup being eaten was in the Caribbean at the official dinner celebrating Haiti’s independence from France in 1804. Pumpkin takes very well to the classic flavours of Jamaican “jerk”. This fiery spice mix is most commonly used on barbequed meats, but it’s suitable for use here. It’s simple to make your own jerk seasoning. Combine 1 tbs brown sugar, 2 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp salt and half a teaspoon of each of the following: cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, ground allspice, ground cinnamon and paprika. And a grating of nutmeg for good measure.
For the soup, add a couple of teaspoons of jerk seasoning and a strip of orange peel to the onions and cook these out for a minute or so before adding the pumpkin chunks. Cook as above but remove the orange before pureeing. Stir through a little freshly squeezed orange juice after blending along with salt to season and some red wine vinegar for an edge just like they did to that first recorded pumpkin soup.
Canadian Pumpkin Soup
Flavour the onions with a generous teaspoon of smoked paprika. Cook as usual and then garnish with a combination of bacon, craisins and pepitas that you’ve cooked to a sticky conclusion with maple syrup and a pinch of salt.
Indian Pumpkin Soup
Add a couple of teaspoons of good curry powder or curry paste to your onions after they cook. Cook out for a minute or so. Then toss and toast your pumpkin chunks in all this before adding the stock. Continue as usual but stir in a cup of yoghurt at the end of cooking (add a little of the soup to the yoghurt first to help avoid curdling). Serve with an Indian garnish of curry leaves and mustard seeds crisped in hot oil.
Chinese Pumpkin Soup
Cook the onions with 2 blades of star anise and 1 tsp fennel seeds. Remove the star anise before adding the pumpkin. Cook the pumpkin in the stock as usual but add 1 cup cooked rice when you blend it. This will thicken the soup and make it creamier. Pass through a sieve and add more stock if it’s too thick. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds, a few drops of sesame oil and the most meagre swirl of soy sauce to taste. Or you can top with with wok-fried slices of lap cheong sausage and a dice of water chestnut that you’ve deglazed with a little Chinese rice wine (shaohsing) and soy sauce.
Spanish Pumpkin Soup
Add a couple of fresh bay leaves and the stalks of a small bunch of parsley to the cooking pumpkin. Remove before blending. To make this easier, tie them together, perhaps in some muslin if you are that sort of old-school, high-detail cook. Garnish with roast red peppers, a pinch of paprika and thin slices of grilled chorizo or toasted almonds. Add a few drops of good sherry vinegar on top of the soup to contrast against the sweetness of the pumpkin and the peppers.
German Pumpkin Soup
Some might call it racial profiling but if anyone was going to make a pumpkin soup with an overdose of porkiness I suspect it would be my German friends. They’d probably make it like my pumpkin soup with pork hock and pork stock. Don’t blame me if you start wearing lederhosen after eating it and start singing the praises of Bayern Munich.
