All started w/ a pumpkin, a superb Hokkaido. (As you might know by now Hokkaido is my favorite pumpkin – next comes butternut.)
In my trusted food store I got a Hokkaido of 1600 g which resulted in 1350 g after trimming & scraping out the seeds & the soft mess.
What to do w/ such a lot of pumpkin?
For a start I decided to bake the Hokkaido in my oven – only w/ some olive oil, salt & pepper. You may store the baked Hokkaido in your fridge for up to a week afterwards.
The weather was rainy & cold – not such a surprise for November. So I thought about how to prepare another version of a pumpkin soup … & I also decided to try working w/ Hokkaido purée in a cake or a bread … (later more about these ideas!)
So now it’s the pumpkin soup!
However, we start now w/ the Hokkaido & the preliminaries.
After cleaning, trimming & scraping I cut the Hokkaido in bite-sized pieces.
I lined a baking tray w/ baking parchment (for the sake of cleaning afterwards …) The Hokkaido bits mixed w/ olive oil, salt & pepper were distributed all over the baking tray & then all marched into the oven.
I let it bake for about 30 min at 175° C w/ fan. (No need for preheating!)
Afterwards I had a big bowl filled w/ soft Hokkaido. (Once again my tip: if you need pumpkin purée & you need only a rather small amount of it & you are short on time – just try the corner for baby food. There you’ll find small glasses w/ pure organic pumpkin purée w/o any other additives.)
For the soup I needed about 500 g Hokkaido purée – so the rest of the baking adventure was stored safely in my fridge while I assembled all the other ingredients for my pumpkin soup.
There are …
- baked Hokkaido (very soft!)
- beef stock
- carrots
- red pepper
- shallots
- chorizo
- dried oregano
- dried thyme.
Why working w/ chorizo?
Chorizo is a hearty sausage which is fine w/ Mediterranean herbs. I thought it might be more interesting to have a pumpkin soup which is not flavored w/ ginger, cumin, coriander, coconut …
Let’s start!
Preparing the basis for the soup is very easy:
- Put the Hokkaido bits & (most of) the stock in a pot.
- Heat it up.
- Blend it w/ your handheld electric blender until mushy.
- Add salt & pepper to taste.
Then set aside.
After cleaning & trimming & peeling the vegetables everything – including the chorizo – ist cut into thin slices … ok – the red pepper is cut lengthwise beforehand. Try to prepare the slices as thin as possible.
Add some olive oil to a frying pan & add all the vegetables, the dried herbs & the chorizo & fry … Add some stock if it gets too dry … (Remember that I said to pour only most of the stock into the pot w/ the Hokkaido.)
After about 10-15 min overall the mess is soft, but no disintegration all over the pan.
Just add it to the Hokkaido mess, mix well & let it come to a boil once again.
Ready for serving!
This is a very thick soup, a substantial soup … if you like it a little more runny just add more stock than said in the recipe. No harm will be done to the soup at all.
If you like you may add a splash of this gorgeous pumpkin seed oil.
Enjoy!
- 500 g pumpkin mash (hokkaido pumpkin)
- 400 ml stock (beef, veal or whatever)
- 2 shallots (about 70 g before trimming & peeling)
- 2 carrots (about 250 g before trimming & peeling)
- 1 red pepper (about 100 g before trimming)
- 2 chorizos (about 100 g)
- ¼ tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp dried thyme
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt & pepper (to taste)
- pumpkin seed oil (optional)
- handheld electric blender
- Trim & peel the shallots & cut them into thin slices. Put the shallot mess into a frying pan together w/ the olive oil & the dried herbs & start frying.
- Cut the chorizo into thin slices (1-2 mm) & add to the shallot mess.
- Trim the red pepper & cut it into 2 halves. Afterwards cur it into thin strips (about 2 mm). Add to the pan.
- Trim & peel the carrots & cut them into thin slices (1-2 mm). Add to the pan.
- Let it fry altogether for about 5 min; then add some stock (about 100 ml) & let it simmer for at least another 5 min. The carrots shall be soft.
- In the meantime: put the pumpkin mash in a pot together w/ the remaining stock & bring everything to a boil.
- Blend everything w/ your handheld electric blender into a soft mess. Be careful: it likes to splash!
- Add all of the mess of the frying pan to the mess in the pot & combine. Add salt & pepper to taste.
- Serve & add some pumpkin seed oil on top if you like.
