Soup season

Chef finds a spicy use for pumpkins

Pumpkin soup. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

Pumpkins don’t just make for a great jack-o-lantern in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Their thick flesh also makes for tasty pies and a soup with a spicy curry kick.

“This time of year, soups are awesome,” said chef Devon Morgante.

Foods follow the seasons, he explained as he prepared Curry Pumpkin Soup in his Crescent City kitchen store, Vita Cucina.

“We have wet and dry seasons here,” he said. “It’s nice to have soup in the wet seasons.”

The summer season ends with tomatoes in September and then it becomes time for apples in October, which cinnamon and nutmeg go so well with.

“That transfers over to pumpkin pie,” Morgante said.

But pumpkin can go well with nutmeg and allspice or with curry. There are lots of dishes that could be made with pumpkin.

Don’t be tied to a recipe, Morgante said, which was actually his lesson this week in his culinary class at Del Norte High School. His students started off with a basic applesauce recipe and then added what they wanted to make it their own — the recipe is the baseline.

“That’s a lot of what cooking is,” he said.

Yams or butternut squash could be used in this autumn soup instead of pumpkin. Also, more or less spice could be added, depending on the cook’s preference.

“Utilize what you have,” Morgante said about using what is already around the kitchen.

The first thing to do is prepare the fresh pumpkin. This can be done by cutting it in half and scooping out the seeds, Morgante said.

Then place the halves, hollowed-out sides down, on a pan and roast in the oven at 375 degrees for about 40-50 minutes, depending on the size.

Leaving the skin on insulates the flesh and after cooking long enough the skin just pops off, Morgante said.

Another option, Morgante said, is to peel and seed the pumpkin then cut up into chucks and cook in boiling water on the stovetop.

For the pumpkin soup, he decided to roast the bright orange gourd.

While the pumpkin cooled, Morgante sliced up a few yellow onions and cooked them with olive oil in a large soup pot on the stovetop.

“When you hear it sizzle you know it’s hot enough,” he said when the onions hit the heated oil.

Morgante crushed up several garlic cloves with the back of his chef’s knife, minced them and threw the garlic in the pot along with a little white wine to deglaze the onions.

He scooped out the pumpkin into the pot and let it simmer for a while, “making sure all the pumpkin is cooked” by pushing the chunks to the side of the pot to see if they were tender.

Morgante then added about two tablespoons of red curry paste. The amount of curry depends on one’s tolerance for spice.

“This is one of those things that you start off with a little bit and then add a little bit more,” he said.

Once the ingredients had cooked long enough, Morgante pureed everything together with a hand-held immersion blender. Then the soup really took on a creamy form.

Instead of using an immersion blender, Morgante said to strain the solids from the liquid and  puree in a blender or food processor and then reintroduce the liquid in the pot.

After tasting the soup to see how sweet the pumpkin ended up being, he decided to add a little brown sugar. But, like the curry, the amount is to one’s taste.

He finished off the soup by stirring in a few drops of fish sauce and a can of coconut milk.

The coconut milk added a soft white creamy swirl to the mellow soup with a deceptively strong kick that faded into overall warmness after a few sips.

1. Roasted pumpkin halves are removed from the oven. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

Onions and garlic are diced and added to a hot stockpot with olive oil. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

3. The meat of the pumpkin is scooped from the skin and added to the onion mixture. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

The soup simmers over medium heat. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

Curry paste and coconut milk are added and an immersion blender is used to puree the ingredients. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson)

Pumpkin recipes

Curry Pumpkin Soup

1 5-pound pumpkin

3 Yellow onions, sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2-2 quarts chicken stock

Salt to taste

1-3 tablespoons red curry paste

1 13.5 ounce can of coconut milk 13.5 ounces

1/2 cup dry roasted unsalted peanuts

Cilantro, as needed

Method:

• Cut pumpkin in half lengthwise and remove seeds, season with salt and roast on a sheet pan, cut side down, with a little water in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minute or until soft. Remove from oven and cool.

• Heat soup pot and add olive oil, and onions until softened for about 5-7 minutes.

• Peel pumpkin and add to soup pot.

• Add chicken stock and bring mixture to a low boil.

• Simmer 10 minutes or until pumpkin is very soft.

• Add curry paste to taste.

• Puree soup in blender or food processor. Once the soup has been pureed add coconut milk.

• Garnish with chopped peanuts and cilantro leaves.

Crème Brûlèe with Pumpkin

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

8 eggs yolks, beaten

1/2 a vanilla bean split and seeded or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 cup pumpkin puree

About 1/4 cup sugar for caramelizing the top

Method:

• Pre heat oven to 300 degrees F

• Bring cream, vanilla bean seeds or vanilla extract and half the sugar to a simmer

• Add remaining sugar to egg yolks and whisk together

• Gradually temper your egg yolks and sugar by adding some of the hot cream mixture to the egg mixture while whisking — this will keep the eggs from scrambling

• While whisking add the egg mixture back to the pot, then stir in the cinnamon and allspice

• Stir with a wooden spoon over medium heat until the mixture coats the back of the spoon

• Remove from heat and strain and fold in pumpkin, then fill each brûlèe dish and place into a pan with high sides

• Pour hot water into pan about three-quarters up the sides of the brulee dishes (this is easiest if you already have the pan in the oven and the oven rack pulled out part way)

• Push in oven rack and cook brulees till almost set but still wiggly in the center.

• Pull from the oven and let cool in the water bath for about 30 minutes.

• Put in the refrigerator to cool completely or overnight

• When ready to serve, sprinkle each brulee with enough sugar to cover the top of the custard

• With a blow torch carefully caramelize the sugar and let cool a few minutes before eating