Autumn Fare, vegetable - soup
t=teaspoon T=tablespoon
These recipes are for your personal use only and may not be added in any form to archives or other works.
Pumpkin-Porcini Soup with Roasted Pine Nuts
A November creation, the hint of cinnamon and splash of sherry are the secrets
to this winter warmer. Pine nuts and the porcini mushrooms give flavourful
texture. Read note for alternate method for the puree, substitute and serving
suggestions.
serves 4
preheat oven to 200° C.
350 g. pumpkin puree (+-800 g. whole pumpkin)
2 T. red onion, minced (or shallot)
3 T. pine nuts
15 g. dried porcini mushrooms
300 g. strong chicken stock
2 t. butter
1/4 t. ground cinnamon
2 T. dry sherry
salt, white pepper
garnish: parsley, mint or chopped chives
Soak the dried mushrooms with enough warm water to cover by 1.5 cm. Set
aside.
Cut off the stem then cut the pumpkin into eighths, discarding the seeds and
fibres. Lay flat and roast in the oven until soft, approximately 20
minutes.
Sauté the pine nuts in the melted butter until light brown (watch carefully as
they burn quickly). Lift out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Chop when
cool.
Sauté the onion in the same butter until soft. Add the puree, stock, pinch of
pepper. Stir, cover and allow to gently simmer for 10 minutes. In the meantime,
squeeze out the liquid from the mushrooms and mince.
Simmer the mushroom liquid rapidly to reduce by half.
After the 10 minutes are up, add the minced mushrooms to the soup with the pine
nuts and the reduced mushroom liquid. Allow to cook another 10 minutes covered.
Soup should not be too thick. Add a little more chicken broth if necessary
taking care it does not become too thin.
Add more salt or pepper if necessary. Add the sherry, stir well and allow to sit
off heat for a minute or two before serving. Garnish as suggested.
Note: Though sherry is better for this soup, white wine may replace it or even
Cognac. Roasted and chopped chestnuts may replace the pine nuts which is also
very tasty. However, I prefer the pine nuts for this soup reserving the
chestnuts for my Pumpkin, Apple and Chestnut Soup.
To serve this soup in hollowed out small individual pumpkins, choose those that
are about 400 g. each. Cut off the tops, allowing a generous bowl. Scoop out the
seeds and fibre and discard. Use a spoon to scoop out the flesh leaving a lining
of about 1/2 cm. Be careful not to scrape through the shell. Bake in a hot oven
for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin bowls ‘give’ when you squeeze in the
sides a little but remain a little firm. Remove and cover with foil to keep warm
until ready to fill with the soup and serve.
Each pumpkin will hold about 150 ml. of soup. Alternatively, you can use a
larger pumpkin as a serving dish to ladle into individual warmed bowls. In this
case, double the baking time but watch that the pumpkin remains firm enough to
hold its shape. Pumpkins used for soup or serving bowls must not be baked until
soft.
If you use either method, then chop the flesh finely and bake along with the
pumpkins until almost soft. Reserve enough to allow one heaped teaspoon per
person and add this a few minutes before the end of the cooking time. Weigh the
rest, puree and proceed as directed.
All recipes are excerpts from "Welcome to My Kitchen" - The Epicurean Table and are copyright of the author. Recipes are not to be added to any form of archive or other works of any kind.
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The Epicurean Table © 1999-2006 Patricia Conant