I’ve been making this recipe for years, and it’s always a success. I owe this recipe to someone, (she knows who she is, and here it is, decades later!). On Saturday I had a dinner at home and and five of the eight guests repeated the soup! It’s perfect for this time of the year, when there are pumpkins galore, and it’s a cozy, warm, spicy soup because of the madras powder, and the colour is superb!

It’s taken from a cooking book made for charitable purposes called ” The Food Aid Cookery Book “, remember the song? It was published by the B.B.C., wherein (some famous and some not) people from Great Britain donated their favourite recipes. This recipe is from Geoffrey Lawrence from Kent.

Pumpkin Soup

Serves  4-6

Ingredients

700g pumpkin

25g butter

1 medium onion ( finely chopped)

1 level teaspoon Madras curry powder

25g flour

570ml chicken stock

1 rounded dessertspoon tomato purée

275ml milk

salt and pepper

1 sprig of parsley, chopped

Method

Peel the pumpkin, remove the seeds and surrounding fibres and dice the flesh into small cubes. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, 3L, add the chopped onion and cook this over a low heat until the onion is soft, about 10 minutes. 

Now raise the heat to medium, stir in the curry powder and cook for another minute. After that stir in the flour and cook for a further minute. Then stir in the stock, a little at a time, followed by the tomato purée and the diced pumpkin. Bring everything to the boil, stirring continuously, the lower the heat and simmer very gently, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is soft. This can be anything from 15 to 45 minutes. 

Finally, liquidise the mixture, as well as you can, don’t worry if it’s a bit thick and return to the pan. Add the mlk and reheat gently, seasoning with salt and freshly ground pepper. Garnish with chopped parsley. 

Tips:

• You can make the mixture the day before and add the milk when warming it up
• Add chopped coriander
• Serve chopped almonds on the side

Enjoy the giving, cook more!

Isabel

xxx