Pumpkin soup with coconut milk
Pumpkin! Coconut! Spices!
Recipe type: Appetiser
Cuisine: French
Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 40 mins
Total time: 50 mins
Serves: 4
(sorry, it’s kind of hard to make soup look good. I’d have added coriander or mint if I had it, but the fridge was a bit bare)
I bought pumpkin a while ago, intending to make a soup. I had originally been counting on the H; except that when I got around to it tonight (along with testing my new Braun hand mixer), the H said, “sure, I know a recipe. But it’s made with milk”. Arg. Not for lactose-intolerant me, then. I tried googling a few other recipes to no avail. Finally ended up making up one. This was very much driven by the fact that we had coconut milk in the cupboard (got a batch of 6 250mL cartons from the Chinese district), and by the spices that I could find (the original recipes suggested nutmeg and paprika, which go well with milk but atrociously with coconut milk).
- 700g pumpkin
- 4 potatoes, roughly same weight as pumpkin
- 250mL coconut milk
- 2 teaspoons chicken powder (or the equivalent amount in bits of ouillon cube)
- 1.5 teaspoon ground ginger (or to taste)
- 1.5 teaspoon curry (or to taste)
- Dash of pepper
- Chop up the pumpkin into small pieces, and peel it (I suggest that order because it's easier to peel a pumpkin when reduced into smaller pieces). Peel the potatoes and chop them into small pieces.
- In a saucepan, put the pumpkin pieces and the potato pieces. Add just enough water to cover. Add the chicken powder. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmering. Also use this opportunity to give a good whirl to the soup, to dissolve the chicken powder in the water if not already done. Wait 30 minutes until potatoes are cooked.
- Then blend everything with the hand mixer. Withdraw from fire and add coconut milk. Add the spices. Taste and adjust: it should be creamy with medium spiciness.
- Plate and serve warm.
