oven roasted pumpkin soup

oven roasted pumpkin soup

• 21 Jul 2021

I don't know about you, but I've been spending a lot of time at home lately. So instead of my usual meat and salad roll for lunch I've decided to slow down and prepare my lunch. I've been making soup for lunch which I then serve with home made bread and this week, I also made a cauliflower cake.

This roast pumpkin soup is so delicious, I thought I'd share the recipe with you. Normally I top the soup with just a swirl of yoghurt but this week I fancied up the bowl with some fried eggplant a la Julia Nishimura and instead of yoghurt, I did a swirl of tahini. If you make the soup with oil and vegetable stock and top it with a tahini swirl, the soup becomes vegan.

 

Here's the recipe for you which serves 4. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon.

Roast pumpkin soup

1½ tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, unpeeled

750g butternut or Jap pumpkin, halved and skin on

Salt, black pepper and chilli flakes

1 tbs butter or oil 

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped 

1 medium carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped 

1 medium potato, peeled, chopped

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup water

 

To serve

Plain yoghurt or tahini

coriander leaves

toasted flaked almonds

fried eggplant (optional) 

 

Fried eggplant (optional)

2 tbs plain flour

1 tsp ground cumin

pinch of sea salt 

1 small eggplant (about 200 g), cut into 1.5 cm cubes

vegetable oil, for shallow-frying

 

Method 

Preheat oven to 200°C /180°C fan-forced. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Place pumpkin and garlic in a bowl. Add oil then season with salt, pepper and chilli flakes and toss to coat. Arrange pumpkin mixture, in a single layer, on prepared tray. Bake for 1 hour or until pumpkin is golden and fork tender. Leave to cool in the turned off oven.

 

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrot and cook stirring for 5 minutes or until the onion has softened. Squeeze garlic cloves from skin and add the garlic to the pan. Add potato, stock and 1 cup cold water. Cover then bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes or until potato is tender. Scrape the pumpkin from the skin and add to the saucepan. Cook for 10 minutes, or until heated through. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly then using a stick blender, blend pumpkin mixture until smooth. Return to pan over low heat while you prepare the eggplant.

 

Fried eggplant

Combine the flour, cumin and salt in a small bowl. Toss the eggplant in the seasoned flour and shake off any excess. Heat 2 cm of oil in a small saucepan or frying pan over a medium heat and fry the eggplant in batches until golden and soft on the inside. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel.

 

Ladle the soup into bowls, top soup with some yoghurt or tahini, fried eggplant cubes and some coriander and slivered almonds. Sprinkle with a few salt flakes just before serving.

 

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. 

Bye for now,

Jillian