A thick, comforting soup to keep the shivers at bay. It would be great for a Halloween party as you can make a scary face from the hollowed out pumpkin afterwards.
Serves 6 - 8 people
Ingredients:
- 1 kg pumpkin (or you could use butternut squash)
- 510 ml stock (vegetable or chicken)
- 2 x 400ml cans of coconut milk
- Juice of 2 limes
- A piece of fresh ginger (about 3cm across)
- 2 medium onions
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 large mild red chillies (or more if you like your food very spicy)
- A handful of fresh coriander
- Vegetable oil
- Salt and pepper
Method:
1. Your first job is to remove the flesh from the pumpkin – allow a bit of time for this and be prepared for some mess! If you want to make a Halloween face from the pumpkin then carefully cut a lid from the top and then scoop out all the flesh. If you don’t want to reuse the pumpkin shell then you can simply peel the skin away from the outside. Remove all the pumpkin seeds, and chop the flesh into small cubes. Now set this aside for later.
2. Peel and chop the onions, garlic and ginger, and deseed and chop the chillies. Don’t worry about chopping the ingredients too finely, as the soup will be liquidised later. Pour around 2 tablespoons of oil into a large saucepan and gently fry these ingredients together with some salt and pepper for around 5 minutes or until softened. Make sure the pan is big enough to hold all the other ingredients as everything will be cooked in this one pan.
3. Add the cubed pumpkin to the pan, along with the stock and the coconut milk. Bring the contents of the pan to a simmering point and then allow to cook, half covered by a lid, for around 25 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft when tested with a sharp knife.
4. Now chop the coriander and add to the pan along with the lime juice.
5. The soup is now ready for blending. If you have a big enough pan and a hand-held blender, you could do this in the pan itself. Otherwise it is easiest to pour it into a liquidiser or food-processor and blend it in batches. Remember to be careful as the soup will be very hot.
6. You should now have a lovely smooth soup. Check for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if necessary. You could garnish this with finely chopped chillies and/or coriander, or simply serve it as it is – it’s lovely served in mugs to warm your hands around. This soup is also quite happy to be frozen and reheated.
For other winter warmers, check out the baked butternut squash with melted cheese centres, and the tangy roast chicken with a lemon and white wine gravy.
