Pumpkin and Sweetcorn Soup

If you're looking for a fragrant spin on a classic dish with a tight budget, then you're looking for this recipe.  The soup has a smooth and creamy texture - with no cream required - and freezes beautifully for lunches throughout the week.

The small can of light coconut cream I have used can be omitted if you want to keep it simple, but do try it the first time as even a small amount of coconut cream gives the soup a spicy fragrance that elevates this recipe well beyond the standard pumpkin soup.  If you want to enhance the Thai flavours further, add a tablespoon of red curry paste when you soften the onions at the beginning of the recipe.

The sweetcorn was a moment of genius - I added it because corn was ridiculously cheap at the market on the weekend, and I couldn't resist a great deal.  The corn really enhances the butternut pumpkin's sweetness while adding a thicker texture to the soup that makes it very filling.  I used the technique (adding the denuded corn cobs to the stock) from a sweetcorn shot soup recipe that is a standard for me when corn is in season.  I promise to share the recipe for that one with you soon.

The quantity produced will give four adults a very hearty serving (team with crusty bread for a wholesome Sunday night meal) or, in the case of a singleton such as myself, one hearty dinner and about five smaller lunch portions.  Just what a gal saving for a holiday needs in her repertoire!

Pumpkin and Sweeetcorn Soup

Ingredients
- 2 small or 1 large red onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, diced
- 1 kilogram butternut pumpkin, diced
- 1 cup milk
- 270 ml (small) can light coconut cream (optional)
- 2 corn cobs, kernels removed while raw and cobs reserved for the stock
- 3 cups vegetable stock
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste

Remove the kernels from the corn cobs by holding the cob vertical on a chopping board and using a knife to slice downwards.  Keep the denuded cobs for the stock.  Now dice your pumpkin into inch thick pieces.

Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a stockpot on a medium-high heat.  Soften the onion and garlic in the oil for around 10 minutes.  Add the pumpkin and corn kernels, and stir over a medium-high heat for around 4 minutes.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of water over the pumpkins, add pinch of salt and a couple of grinds of pepper, then put the lid on the stockpot and leave for ten minutes to sweat.  Check it every so often to ensure it hasn't gone dry, but other than that don't fuss.  This will smell amazing every time you take the lid off.

Pour the stock, milk and coconut cream over the top of the pumpkin and corn.  Submerge the cobs in the liquid.  Stir to mix then bring to the simmer.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover for 30 minutes.

After allowing the soup to cool a little, use a stick blender to make the pumpkin soup silky smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste, blending as you go to make sure the seasoning is evenly distributed.  Serve in large bowls with chopped coriander sprinkled on top or a dollop of sour cream.

If you want to increase the Thai flavours, you should add 1 tablespoon of yellow curry paste to the onions when you soften them with the garlic at the very start of the recipe.

Truffled broad bean and mushroom soup

Last weekend I had a few friends around to my place for dinner and whipped up some Guinness and Chocolate Ice Cream for dessert.  But to start the meal I decided a small bowl of soup was in order, made with the last of the broad beans in my freezer.

Now, when you have a boyfriend who, along with some of his mates, has a very large organic vegetable patch (this is not a euphemism) you will eventually have to find a use for a large amount of broad beans.  Apparently putting nitrogen in the soil is something broad beans do very well.  I personally think they make a seriously good soup, amongst other things.  They also freeze up nicely.

The resulting soup recipe originally came about at the height of broad bean season and was a hit at a birthday dinner I put on not long ago.  But it was a new and improved version of the recipe debuted at this weekend's dinner party, which was greatly improved through the addition of some Swiss Brown mushrooms.  I served it in a few of my (formerly) unused and neglected ramekins with a small crouton with a smear of duck pate on the side.

Truffled broad bean and mushroom soup

Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups broad beans (taken out of the pods so they look like Jack's giant beans)
- 4 cups vegetable stock (tetra packs are just fine)
- 1 large spring/new onion (or a brown onion but the spring onions are sweeter)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms (Swiss Brown if you have them, but no worries if not)
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley and chives
- 2 tablespoons butter (I love salted, but whatever floats your boat)
- 1 tablespoon truffle sauce (see picture below)
- 1/2 cup white wine
-  salt to taste

This stuff is the secret ingredient for this soup.  It's an okay cream of broad bean soup without it, but with the truffle sauce, this is amazingly good.  You can get this "special sauce" - which I think of as a mushroom-and-truffle mush - from Essential Ingredient.  Alternatively, just drizzle in some truffle oil just before serving this tasty dish.

So, to start.  Throw your broad beans, whether frozen or fresh, into a saucepan of boiling water and leave them there until they start to look "pruney" like your fingers after a long bath.  Drain them in a colander and run them under cold water to stop the cooking process and make them easier to pull out of their bitter outer skin.  Put on a nice movie or a TV show where you can see it (this is a bit of a boring task) and then pull the inner, sweet green beans out of the darker, greyish shell.  Throw away the outer shells and get working on the base of the soup.

Dice your onion (onions plural if they are smaller) and garlic - I really like the freshly harvested "spring" onions that are on sale at the markets at the moment.  These are the ones that haven't dried out in storage and come attached to their green stalks (which you can happily chop up and add along with the juice, fresh onion).  Now, melt your butter in the bottom of a large saucepan and then throw the onion and garlic in to soften.  When they start to look translucent - but before they start browning - pop in your sliced mushrooms and stir while all the ingredients cook down and the mushrooms start to shrink a little bit.   Add your broad beans until warmed through and, finally, your chopped herbs.   Throw in the white wine on top and stir while it steams and bubbles and then settles down into an even simmer.

Pour your stock on top and let this base simmer until it has reduced by about a third.  At this point, allow the soup to cool a little and then blend it with a Bamix (stick blender) until it is smooth and creamy.  Then, when you are ready to serve, heat up again and add your cream, the truffle mush (ahem, sauce) and salt to taste (truffle salt, if you have it.  I'm not joking, this stuff is the bomb).  Serve immediately.

The recipe as described serves 8 if the portion size is small (a small coffee cup-sized portion) or 4 for a more substantial starter.   If you have a ravenous appetite after a hard day slaving over broad beans at the organic vegetable patch, then I would suggest this would serve 2 with thick slices of crusty bread on the side.

Enjoy!