Roasted pumpkin and tomato soup

 

Recipe: Roasted pumpkin and tomato soup

This soup has been in high rotation this winter and each time I love it just a little more! It was inspired by Stephanie Alexander’s latest cookbook Home. I’ve simplified the method but roasting the vegetables is non-negotiable, as it’s what gives this soup its rich umami flavour.

 

Roasted pumpkin and tomato soup

1 kg pumpkin, peeled and cut into 6 cm chunks
1 small potato, peeled and halved (optional, to thicken the soup)
1 onion, peeled and thickly sliced
4 medium-large ripe tomatoes, halved
6 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1.5 litres vegetable stock (I prefer homemade or Marigold bouillon powder)
1 – 2 tsp smoked paprika
1/3 cup olive oil
Sprig of rosemary (optional)
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Heat the oven to 220c (200c fan-forced).

Cut the pumpkin, potato and onion as directed above. Toss in a bowl with olive oil, herbs, garlic and a pinch of salt. When covered in oil, lay out in a single layer in your baking dish. Ideally use a large baking dish big enough to fit all the vegetables without overcrowding, that’s safe to use on the stove top, if it’s not big enough, use two.

Roast vegetables for 40 minutes, give the tray a shake and stir halfway through this time. It’s ok for the vegetable to get crisp and a little scorched (but not burnt) as this deepens the flavour.

Remove from the oven and throw away the rosemary stem. Take out the tomatoes and discard the skins. Do the same with the garlic. Both should be easy to slip off when cooked. Add these along with the rest of the vegetables to a large pot.

Place the baking dish, with the delicious stuck-on goodies, on the stove top on medium heat.  Add a cup or two of your stock and stir with a wooden spoon to deglaze the pan. Once the bits have come away from the pan, pour the deglazing liquid into your pot with the vegetable. Add the remaining stock and whizz with a hand blender until smooth. Alternatively you can use a blender or food processer.

Put the pot on the heat and bring to a simmer. Taste before adding salt and pepper. If using a commercial stock it mightn’t need much. If the soup is thicker than you’d like add more stock. If a bit thin, just simmer on a low heat til you have your desired consistency.

 

what I'm lichen at equinox time

Happy equinox. In this part of the world it is now officially spring. And how do I know? I had to slap on some sun block today, noticing my skin was going pink after a delicious hour of reading in the garden. The wind chime is tinkling in the breeze and there is dry cider and rose´ chilling in anticipation in the fridge – yes the weather has turned the corner at last.

Yesterday I blew some cobwebs out of my head with a spontaneous trip to Hanging Rock, sans picnic unfortunately but a delightful afternoon out taking photographs and soaking up the eerie vibes.

While I may be taking snaps of nature, there is still not enough light for dinnertime photography. I’ve been enjoying making more curries with Sri Lankan spices. The one below does not attest to any authenticity, just combining what was at hand. It was perfect for an early spring supper. The visual images I will have to leave to your imagination.

Pumpkin and Chickpea Curry with Sri Lankan Spices

coconut oil
2 heaped teaspoons Sri Lankan curry powder
2-3 cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely diced
6 curry leaves
1 onion, diced
a wedge of pumpkin (cubed)
4-5 tomatoes, skinned and diced
1/2 cup of water (as needed)
silverbeet/chard/spinach – a big handful, chopped
cooked chickpeas 1-2 cups
fresh coriander
salt

Heat the coconut oil in a heavy based pot over a medium flame. If you haven’t got coconut just use a bland vegetable oil. Add your spices (curry powder, ginger, chilli, curry leaves) and stir for a few minutes until the aromas are released. Add the onion and stir some more.

When the onion is translucent throw in the cubed pumpkin, once coated with the spices add the tomatoes. If your tomatoes aren’t very juicy add enough water to just cover the vegetables. Cover with a lid and turn the heat to low. Stir every now and then. After about 15 minutes the pumpkin will soften, then add the silverbeet or spinach. Stir. Add more water if it looks like it is drying out. After 5-10 minutes add the cooked chickpeas and coriander. Combine the ingredients well. Add salt as required. Heat the chickpeas through and serve with basmati rice and pickles.

a laksa of sorts

Something very odd has happened in Melbourne this week. We’ve stopped moaning. Instead, little satisfied coos can be heard as some semblance sun returns.

While not bathed in lashings of sunshine, today was the first in months warm enough to eat lunch outside. But what dish to celebrate such a shift in the seasons? Moving away from cool weather stodge I wanted something quick and herby. Though I’m still not sufficiently thawed to embrace salads just yet.

This pumpkin and tofu laksa caught my eye. I had the two key ingredients but would have to improvise with spices.

What emerged twenty minutes later was pumpkin and fried tofu in a fragrant coconut broth. There were rice noodles for comfort and the much desired herbage.

I don’t care what you call it but it made my tastebuds sing.

Improvised pumpkin and tofu laksa*

First make a quick spice paste:
Blend together some garlic, ginger, red chillies, coriander roots, kaffir lime leaves and a dash of vegetable oil. There was no lemongrass in the house alas.

Fry off the spice paste in some vegetable oil. Stir frequently. You’ll know it is time to add the stock because the smell of the gently frying herbs tickles your nose. Add some stock (I used fish because I had some in the freezer but veggie stock would make this suitably vegan). Throw in a handful of pumpkin cut into small wedges.

While the stock comes back to a simmer, cover some rice noodles with boiling water and cut some fried tofu into triangles.

I had time to nip to the garden (it is only a few paces away from the stove) and grab spring onion and fresh mint.

Put a splash of coconut milk and a dash of fish sauce in the soup and have a taste. Of course there are many vegan substitutes such as tamari, soy or sea salt. The pumpkin should be just about cooked.

Now it is time to put it all together. I threw in my wedges of tofu to let them heat through. The soaked rice noodles suitably softened went into the bowl, next the soup and lastly I garnished it with mint, coriander leaves and spring onions.




* more memoir than recipe, go to the BBC site if you want something with nicely set out quantities and method – however just once in your life, wouldn’t it be nice to improvise?

new/old fashioned pumpkin soup

On the weekend, post blog meet, I spent some time in Florence Nightingale mode. I sent the patient off to have a bath, remade the bed, plumped the pillows and provided warm, medicinal beverages. For breakfast there was porridge, slow cooked with sultanas and freshly ground nutmeg. Lunch was an omelette featuring bright yellow, organic eggs, vibrant green silverbeet and red tomatoes. By the time dinner came around I figured soup would be in order for the sick one. But what soup, there are so many to choose from?

For a cold, I figure there are two ways to go. I love healing soup rich with shitake mushrooms and ginger in a nice, clear broth but there was no fish stock or mushrooms at hand. Plan B is the orange route, where the road to good health is paved with beta-carotene to strengthen the immune system.

Chopping up the pumpkin on a cold Sunday night felt comfortingly familiar. With how many pumpkins, in how many houses had I performed this simple action? Pumpkins were not a key feature of my childhood and there was more chicken noodle soup out of a packet than the homemade vegetable variety. Pumpkin soup came into my life as a student in shared houses. It has gone through many phases since– roasting or simmering, simple flavours or bold, blended with a creamy substance or on its own – and seen me leave dairy foods far behind.

There is no hard and fast recipe but this one works really well.

When feeding a sick companion it is always nice to stir in some extra love and well wishes for a speedy recovery. After all, you hope they will get well soon and tackle the growing pile of dishes by the end of the week!

Pumpkin soup 101

(3-6 serves depending on appetite)

1 tab vegetable oil
1 medium onion
3 cm knob, ginger (this gives the soup zing, if you don’t like ginger then leave out but for me this is one of the joys of the meal)
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tsp red curry paste
1/2 stick of lemongrass, bruised
1/2 medium sized pumpkin (a Jap in this case but variety is up to you)
1 large white potato
1 large carrot
vegetable bouillon (hot vegetable stock)
coconut milk (optional)
salt

Get your favourite heavy bottomed pot onto the stove. For me it is my trusty cast iron number (the French one) that I have had for over 20 years. Bring to a low-medium heat and add the oil. The good thing about this soup is that it is blended, so the ingredients can be roughly chopped. Peel everything but you can go easy on the dicing.

Throw in the onions and ginger. Stir til the onions are becoming transparent then add the garlic, lemongrass and curry paste. One teaspoon of paste (I use Mae Ploy) is enough to give it a hint of warmth without dominating the flavour and making it a curried soup. Stir for another couple of minutes til the paste has released some of its aroma. Add the vegetables and coat well in the spices. Now cover with hot stock. The amount used depends on whether you prefer a thin or thick soup. I cover my vegetables with only a couple of centimetres of fluid. Simmer for at least 30 minutes. An hour if you really want. Stir from time to time and make sure the water hasn’t evaporated.

Remove the stick of lemongrass. You are welcome to put it back in once the soup is blended.

Take the soup off the heat, add a dash (only a tablespoon or two is needed) of coconut milk and use your trusty stick blender to give it a whirr. Be sensible. If the pot is really full take care so you don’t scald yourself with hot soup. Obviously you can let it cool or blend in batches in a food processor if you prefer.

Return to the heat and add salt if needed.

The artistes out there would garnish with a flourish of coconut milk, others might like to just let the flavours do the talking.

seasonal eating

This is the point in winter when eating seasonally can become a little tiresome. While nature is gathering energy for the abundance of spring we are left with hardier plant foods – root vegetables, dense fruits like apples and traditionally a store cupboard of dry goods like beans, nuts and grains.

Of course living in the middle of a big city I don’t strictly need to adhere to such a diet. There are grapes and cherries flown in from across the world. I could swap the leathery silverbeet for greenhouse grown tender greens. Fresh tomatoes appear all year round, even if they are tasteless.

You see my choices are equally about taste as they are a tentative foray into the world of ecological consciousness. There is a nuttiness in the pumpkin roasted at this time of year. My belly feels satisfied with a serve of potato when it is cold outside. Parsnips are tender and sweet when freshly picked.

But as much as I like these foods, with a smaller amount of fresh vegetables on the menu for these weeks – familiarity begins to breed if not contempt, just a lack of excitement for things culinary.

This season’s most cooked vegetables revolve around sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin, potato, parsnips, and beetroot. There is a head of cabbage or cauliflower thrown in. More silverbeet than I would usually cook with, other than times that I have grown it. The organic stall has stockpiled enough onions, they hope, to last these months and kept them at a good price even though technically they are out of season. Life without onions or garlic tends to get very dull.

The upside is that in order to avoid boredom, though the ingredients tend to remain constant, it encourages me to use old vegetables in new ways.

This week the last serve of a large pumpkin needed to be eaten. It was the end of the shopping week and the challenge was to make a tasty dinner with only onions and pumpkin as the fresh ingredients. It could have been a curry with tofu, a pumpkin soup with a dash of spice or with beans and pasta to be a cousin of minestrone. Instead it became an even more distant relative of kedgeree.

I sautéed a large amount of diced onion for a long time til it was soft, then added small cubes of pumpkin plus garlic, chilli, a little fresh turmeric and some mild curry powder hiding in the spice drawer. While this slowly cooked in a lidded frypan I put on a pot of basmati rice and another with eggs to boil. When the rice was cooked I stirred it through the vegetables, adding a little butter and salt to carry the flavours. This was finished with a generous amount of parsley from the garden (a de facto green vegetable at this time of year), a large tin of red salmon and topped with the boiled eggs.

I was surprised how well it all came together. The little cubes of pumpkin lent sweetness but didn’t dominate. The salmon worked surprisingly well as a substitute for smoked fish. The combination might alarm a food-combining fascist but the protein and starch made our bellies satisfied.

Sure, I’m looking forward to the fridge brimming with variety but in the meantime I don’t mind having more rice, quinoa, beans and lentils. Salads will return soon enough.