Pumpkin Soup with Curried Apple Chutney

From Biró:European-Inspired Cuisine, Marcel Biró, Gibbs Smith, 2005.

It’s amazing how far one large pumpkin can go. We’ve had three different meals from this one and there’s still some left. So it looks like we’re back to soup again. This one sounded quite an interesting mix of flavours.

Three cups of pumpkin, two cups of apples and one onion, all chopped roughly were sautéed in a large saucepan until they were beginning to brown. Coriander, cumin and turmeric were all then added and stirred until their aroma came through.

It was then time to add the stock. I used six cups of water with two vegetable stock cubes. Also two cups of apple cider were added and half a cup of cream. In also went a cinnamon stick and a good pinch of cayenne pepper. I did not add salt as the stock cubes often have sufficient. This mix was simmered for about half an hour.

When it was cooled a little the cinnamon stick was removed and the soup was pureed with a stick blender. It was then supposed to go through a strainer but I prefer to have my soup to have a few solids. The soup was put away until we were ready to have it.

In the meantime curried apple chutney was made. This was simply a matter of half filling a cup with water and topping it up with apple cider. This was poured into a small saucepan. Then half a cup of rice wine vinegar and almost half a cup of sugar was added. Then a quantity of salt, a few cloves, some mustard seeds, a little ground cinnamon, and some allspice berries. It was all simmered for about 15 minutes.

While this was simmering half a cup of pumpkin was cut up into fine dice and the same quantity of apple. It was all added to the simmering mixture that was now brought back up to the boil and turned off. The apples and pumpkin were strained off and kept as the chutney mix.

 

At serving time the soup was topped with chutney when it was placed in bowls.

This was rather a thin soup (I usually prefer pumpkin soup to be thicker) but it had a depth of flavour that was really very pleasant. The chutney was not what I would usually consider a chutney but it worked well, adding another set of flavours in an already flavoursome soup.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔