This recipe is great for when it’s chilly and raining but you still need to cook dinner. The mix of spices in this Roasted Pumpkin Garlic Soup recipe give it a mellow Indian taste.
Recipe provided by New Zealand Gluten-Free Chef Jimmy Boswell, food writer, chef, food stylist and author of The New Zealand Gluten-Free Cookbook, Published by Penguin New Zealand. For more info on Jimmy, visit his Facebook page.
INGREDIENTS
– 1 kg (2.2 lb) pumpkin I use crown
– 1 head garlic
– 3 tblspns olive oil
– Salt and freshly ground black pepper
– 1 tblspn olive oil
– 1 onion
– 2 stalks celery
– 2 medium carrots
– ½ tspn ground cardamom
– ½ tspn ground cumin
– 1 tspn turmeric
– 3 cups chicken stock
– ½ tspn fresh chilli crushed (optional), or ¼ ground chilli powder
INSTRUCTIONS
First thing to do is cut the pumpkin into medium wedges, skin on. Don’t cut them too small as you will need to roast them without peeling to get a bit of extra flavour in to the pumpkin while it roasts.
Toss in olive oil, season with salt and pepper in a roasting tin.
Cut the top off a head of garlic, drizzle a little oil over the cloves, wrap the garlic in tin foil and add to the pumpkin. Roast at 200C for 30 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft.
About 5-10 minutes before the pumpkin is cooked, coarsely chop the onion, celery and carrot and fry over a medium heat until the onion is translucent.
Add the ground cumin, cardamom and turmeric and fry briefly.
Add the stock, salt and pepper to season and chili (if you like a bit of heat in your soup). Bring to the boil and then reduce to simmer for 15 minutes.
Once this is simmering remove the pumpkin and garlic from the oven and let cool till its cooled enough to handle.
Remove the skin from the cooked pumpkin and then squeeze out the roasted garlic and add to the soup along with the pumpkin. You may need to add some water at this stage to just cover the vegetables. Simmer for another 5 minutes.
Once cooked blend in batches and adjust the seasoning to taste if needed. Serve with some sour cream and chopped chives or parsley.
Image / Jimmy Boswell