Pumpkin Day

Nigel Slater's Spiced Pumpkin Soup With Bacon

by Andrew Barrow, Posted Oct 24th 2005 @ 2:00PM

pumpkin I know I keep on about Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries - it just seems to have hit a culinary nerve - but here is a recipe, in keeping with today's Pumpkin theme, recorded under February 20th.

Spiced Pumpkin Soup With Bacon

a medium onion
2 plump cloves of garlic
50g butter
900g pumpkin
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 small dried chillies
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
4 rashers smoked bacon
100ml single cream

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Melt the butter and cook both onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Peel the pumpkin, remove the stringy bits and seeds and discard them with the peel. Chop into rough cubes and add to the onion. Cook until the pumpkin is golden brown at the edges.

Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a small pan over a very low heat for about 2 minutes until the start to smell warm and nutty. Grind the roasted spices and add them with the crumble chillies to the onion and pumpkin. Cook for a minute or so then add the stock. Simmer for 20 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.

Fry the bacon in the pan in which you toasted the spices. It should be crisp. Cut into small pieces with scissors. Whiz the soup in a blender or processor until smooth. Pour in the cream and add salt and pepper as necessary. Return to the pan and bring almost to the boil. Serve piping hot with the bacon bits scattered on top. Serves 4.

[Photo Andrew Barrow]

Filed under: Pumpkin Day, Books, Methods

Canned pumpkin - is it really pumpkin?

COMMENTS 4

by Sarah Gilbert, Posted Oct 24th 2005 @ 12:32PM

libbys pumpkin "100% pure pumpkin" crows the Libby web site. They announce that they only use "a special variety of pumpkin called the Dickinson." But is that really pumpkin? Experts disagree. For one, it's not orange. The Dickinson Field squash belongs to a species known as Cucurbita moschata, sharing a genus (Cucurbita) with the Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins, but betraying its Halloween-y origins with a decidedly tan skin. A little like the butternut squash - and, in fact, the Dickinson cross-polinates with the butternut.

Despite its tan skin, the Dickinson has that lovely orange flesh you expect from your pumpkin (no artificial coloring necessary). It has all the vitamins and minerals you know and love. It tastes great (and - if you really want to know - those pretty orange-skinned pumpkins? they don't taste so good). It's just that the pumpkin on the label, the one with the bright orange skin, is a bit of a white lie.

Filed under: Science, Farming, Business, Pumpkin Day, Ingredients