As part of my Halloween Cooking Projects I made a Pumpkin Soup. Things had changed a little for me as professional life had seen me move jobs for the first time in six years. However to balance this out I was thankful that there were numerous constants in my personal life that made the job move a lot easier than it could have been.
Naturally due to the virus, that we dare not speak the name of, Halloween is going to be a muted affair this year as trick or treating is banned. However that doesn't stop the preparation of a number of Autumn recipes that taste extra special at this time of year.
Last weekend, after I had hollowed out my pumpkin to make a decorative lantern, I used 500 grams of the Pumpkin flesh as an ingredient for a soup. The full ingredients for this recipe are:
500 grams of Pumpkin Flesh.
Six leaves of Fresh Basil carefully shredded.
A diced Red Onion.
A diced Onion.
Two diced cloves of Garlic.
250 grams of Baby Tomatoes cut into halves.
0.3 litres of Beef Stock.
Two tablespoons of Sunflower Oil.
To match the Halloween Theme ,as I cooked, was music by a band that wanted to make their songs like horror movies set to music. The band was Black Sabbath and I had the sounds of their third album "Master of Reality" with its sludgy guitar riffs and the odd mellow acoustic number slithering out of the speaker. This was the first Sabbath album to mix a couple of mellow acoustic numbers with their normal riff-laden heavier tracks such as album opener "Sweet Leaf", an ode to the virtues of smoking weed.
The method for this recipe is quite simple and goes like this:
1. Sweat the Onions, Garlic, Pumpkin and Shredded Basil Leaves in the Sunflower Oil in a Le Cresceut Dish on a low heat on the hob for around ten minutes.
2. Add the Baby Tomatoes and sweat for a further ten minutes.
3. Add the Beef Stock and simmer steadily for another fifteen minutes.
4. Take off the heat, blend, pour into a sauce pan and warm through prior to serving.
Iconic as it is for Halloween and as an ingredient in the popular thanksgiving pudding Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin can have a bland taste if it's not flavoured properly. Its natural flavour is quite like wet cupboard. However the Tomatoes and Fresh Basil coupled with the earthy Beef Stock turned this soup into a vibrant taste of Autumn.
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