Pumpkin Soup with Chilli

With two and a half butternut pumpkins, unseasonally bitter, cold weather and a body threatening to succumb to a cold, I've been scouring the Internet for pumpkin soup that includes warming herbs such as chilli and garlic.

I found this Easy Pumpkin Soup with Chilli on a site dedicated to pumpkin soup. It made a delicious soup with enough left over for another day. Another recipe on the site that caught my eye is the Butternut Pumpkin Soup with Ginger and Chilli. It looks like this recipe would deliver that extra warming kick to the body systems and tastebuds!

Serves 4-6

Times

Preparation:

15 minutes

Cooking:

20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 butternut pumpkin, approximately 1-1½kg
• 1 can coconut milk, or 1 small can of light evaporated milk (about 185ml) with ¼ tsp of coconut essence
• 1 small birds eye chilli
• 3 cloves of garlic
• ¼ cup coriander leaves
• Black pepper
• Optionally, pepitas (roast pumpkin seeds) for garnish

Method

1. Peel and de-seed the pumpkin.
2. Cut into chunks and boil until soft
3. De-seed and slice up the chilli.
4. Puree the garlic, chilli, and about half of the coriander in a blender until well mixed.
5. Drain the cooking water from the pumpkin and keep the water.
6. Blend the pumpkin with the chili mixture in the blender, and then put it back in the pan with the coconut milk or evaporated milk and coconut essence. If the soup is too thick, add some of the cooking water to thin it.
7. Add pepper to taste.
8. Serve in soup bowls, with pumpkin seeds on top and the rest of the coriander leaves.

Tips

• I do not have a blender. Instead I use an immersion blender that has an attachment that lets me process and blend small amounts. I blended the garlic, chilli and coriander with some cooked chunks of pumpkin, added the mixture to the rest of the pumpkin chunks, and then used the immersion blender to blend the mixture and pumpkin chunks.
• I substituted the coconut milk with the evaporated milk and coconut essence to lower the fat content.