Pumpkin soup with Asian flavours

Dear Reader,

Hi there, I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine has been massive. While I don’t write too much here about what I do, I’ll use the words; COVID-19, winter infection planning, Japanese encephalitis, floods, and Ukraine. One of the blessings of my job is diversity. I love my job and the people with whom I work. While there is always some work on weekends, I hope the people I work with won’t be overwhelmed with the volume of work they need to manage.

A few people who read the blog have mentioned from time to time a desire to see if I can write about a meal that doesn’t have meat (including bacon or speck).

I’m not the most imaginative cook. I like routine because it’s easy to live a life that way. Living alone also means there is no need for sophistication in my cooking. I think of myself as an elementary cook. My gadgets make cooking more manageable and exciting, but I’m a simple soul with simple tastes.

I was chatting with my girlfriend, who also suggested I consider some meat-free options on the blog. In my mind, the most leisurely and most delicious meal to make with enough to keep me going for a few meals is soup. I mentioned bacon a couple of paragraphs above because I often add some bacon to what may essentially be a vegetable soup. So the challenge for me this weekend is not to add meat to any meal.

Ingredients

• Kent pumpkin
• Crème gold washed potato
• White onion
• Root ginger (noun not verb)
• Vegetable oil
• Iodised salt
• Vegetable stock
• Coconut cream
• Laksa paste
• Lemongrass stalks
• Coriander
• Jalapeño sourdough bread
• Lime juice
• Olive oil based butter substitute to spread on the bread with plant sterols to allegedly lower serum cholesterol

Instructions

1. Turn on the oven and set the temperature to 180 °C (fan forced).
2. With a large Chinese meat cleaver, cut the pumpkin and potato into rough chunks. If your meat cleaver isn’t sharp, sharpen it first. There’s nothing like the feel of a cleaver in hand. If you don’t have one and can afford one, a Chinese meat cleaver also makes a fantastic pizza cutter, especially if it has a curved blade.
3. Pour a little vegetable oil into the palm of your non-dominant hand and then rub your hands a little so you can rib some oil over the surfaces of the pumpkin and spud chunks, including the skin.
4. Season the spuds and pumpkin with some salt, rubbing the salt over the surfaces.
5. Put the pumpkin and potato onto a lubricated baking sheet and cook in the oven until the flesh is soft and if you poke the skin it breaks apart.
6. Pour some vegetable oil into a large saucepan and turn on the heat.
7. Cut an onion into quarters and put them into the saucepan and begin the long patient process of caramelising the onions.
8. Keep gently sautéing the onions until the have turned the colour you lust after. Keep moving them to avoid the onions from sticking to the base of the saucepan.
9. When the roasted and caramelised pumpkin and potato are ready add them to the saucepan over the onions and then add some vegetable stock. Use your favourite spatula to rub out the fond which has formed on the stainless steel base of the saucepan.
10. Add a generous tablespoon of laksa paste and a couple of bruised lemongrass stalks. Add the root ginger too. If you’re at a loss for how to bruise the lemongrass, I’d suggest using a heavy stone pestle or a heavy stainless steel coffee tamper. I’ve included a photo for you to see. I basically give the lemongrass stalks a good whack up and down the shaft.
11. Simmer the soup so the watery stock reduces.
12. Pour in a tin of coconut cream and chopped roots, stalks, and leaves of a bunch of coriander.
13. When everything looks like it’s been incorporated and well mixed and thickening like the consistency of thicken cream turn off the heat, remove the lemongrass stalks, and use a stick blender to process the soup. Towards the end squeeze in some lime juice for a little sourness.
14. With a bread knife, cut a thick slice of jalapeño sourdough bread and spread some of the “fake butter” on it.
15. Ladle some soup in a bowl and serve with the bread.
16. Give thanks to the LORD for the food as well as all the great things in life like friends, work, and family.
17. Enjoy the soup with a spoon and soaked up in that bread.

How was the meal?

The soup and the bread were good. I’m a happy camper. I’m also excited because my youngest child turns 21 this week.

Final thoughts

• Do you like soup? Do you ever add Asian flavours to ingredients which traditionally aren’t Asian?
• How has your week been? I hope it’s been fulsome and full of joy.
• Do you like coriander? I heard a YouTube cook call coriander “Satan’s lettuce”. My Mum doesn’t like it and I have a few friends who also thinks it tastes soapy.
• What are you planning to make next week? I’m thinking of nude wonton soup.