Pumpkin Soup with Crispy Spam and Rye Sourdough Croutons
This pumpkin soup has a savoury surprise: golden, crispy cubes of Spam folded through the bowl like salty little treasures. Roasted pumpkin brings sweetness and body, cream and cream cheese make it rich and silky, and rye sourdough croutons add a crunchy finish.
Ingredients
One small pumpkin or about 500 g pumpkin pieces, peeled and chopped.
One half of a tin of Spam, diced.
One tablespoon of coconut oil or beef dripping
250 mL beef, lamb, and pork stock
75 mL pure pouring cream (no thickeners)
One tablespoon of cream cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Some rye sourdough bread, preferably frozen overnight, then thawed slightly and diced.
Method
Heat the oven or barbecue to 200 °C. Spread the pumpkin pieces and diced Spam on a tray, drizzle with a little coconut oil (or beef dripping), and roast until the pumpkin is soft, caramelised at the edges, and easy to mash.
The diced Spam should become crisp and browned. Set aside a small amount for “garnish.”
Add the roasted pumpkin and cooking liquor to a saucepan. Simmer for 10 minutes so the flavours come together.
Blend the soup until smooth. Stir in the cream and sour cream, then season with salt and pepper. Keep the heat gentle so the soup stays silky.
Fry the diced rye sourdough in some beef dripping, letting it absorb the savoury pan flavours from the Spam. Cook until crisp.
Ladle the soup into a bowl. Scatter over the crispy Spam and rye sourdough croutons.
Serving idea
Serve this as a lunch or easy evening meal. The Spam gives the soup a savoury, meaty edge without announcing itself too loudly, while the rye sourdough croutons bring crunch.
Cook’s note
Freezing the rye sourdough roll overnight, then using it for croutons, is a handy way to work resistant starch into the meal while also reducing waste. For a smoother soup, blend thoroughly before adding the crispy Spam pieces.
Vanilla slice from Providore in the Adelaide Central Market.
Price: $5.00, which is relatively cheap for a vanilla slice these days. 8/10
Dimensions: Very high, too high for me to bite holding vertically. It would need to be approached sideways. There’s a reason why the majority of vanilla slices aren’t high, and (in my opinion) anyone who thinks this is a good selling point is fooling themselves. 3/10
Custard: Vanilla flavour, firm but not too gelatinous. A fork slices through the custard without the custard becoming sloppy. 9/10
Icing: Too sweet and goopy. Unpleasant. 2/10
Pastry: Thick and soggy. The pastry also dehisced from the custard too easily. 1/10
Overall score: 4.6/10
Lunch
The last of the bolar roast
Tea
Pumpkin soup with Spam, rye sourdough croutons, and a slice of rye sourdough with cultured butter
The soup was delicious and had amazing mouthfeel. The combination of the Spam and crusty, crispy croutons was fantastic.
During the week, a workmate, B.C., asked me about butter. She wanted to know my preferences. I mentioned that over Christmas, supermarkets often have short runs of French butter. And sometimes the French butter on sale is also cultured. I haven’t seen any imported French butter or cultured butter in the local supermarkets for many months.
I mentioned a local Australian brand of salted cultured butter, i.e., Pepe Saya. I wasn’t sure about local stockists, though.
I went to the markets this morning. I bought some butter, some rye sourdough, and some pheasant pâté. After spending some time at work, I came home and made myself a light lunch.
It’s been a while since I’ve cooked and eaten duck breast. When I searched my photo library, the last entry was from July 2022.
Three and a half years feels like a long time.
What have I been watching?
I recently cancelled some streaming subscriptions to save money. I kept Paramount+ for all the Star Trek and for shows like Tulsa King and Hawaii Five-0.
Did you know?
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (deceased) are executive producers/developers for Star Trek and Hawaii Five-0! That is awesome. Peter Weller, the actor, also directed episodes of Hawaii Five-0 and Star Trek: Enterprise. He also had a lead acting role in one of the Jar Jar Kelvin Timeline productions of Star Trek (Into Darkness).
Recipe
Ingredients
Duck breast
Avocado
Fig
Sourdough bread
Equipment
Water bath
Precision cooker
Barbecue grill
Instructions
Dry brine the duck breast.
Cook the breast at 58 °C for 70 minutes.
Sear the skin on a hot cast-iron flat top.
Sear the halved fig (cut side down) on a hot cast-iron flat top.
Toast the sourdough on a hot cast-iron flat top in the beef and rendered duck fat.
Mash an avocado cheek with lime juice, then spread it on the toast.
Photographs
Thoughts on the meal
While I don’t eat a lot of poultry these days, I did enjoy this duck breast. It was cooked to a medium rare doneness and was as tender as a piece of eye fillet.
The mashed avocado on the fried sourdough along with the fig would be great for breakfast as well as accompanying the duck breast.
Morning tea
It was a warm morning, so I went to a bakery and bought a slice of lemon and lime cheesecake. It was deliciously refreshing and paired nicely with a cup of coffee.
In the old days (when I was fat[i]), I would cook corned[ii] beef[iii] with vegetables, mustard, garlic, onions, and additives like Worcestershire sauce. I’d eat it with a white sauce made with refined (read ultra-processed) white flour. I usually have boiled potatoes or potato mash with corned beef and white sauce.
More recently, if I want corned beef, I buy it in a can[iv] and make a corned beef hash (sans spuds[v] and onions). A lot of people give me a condescending attitude when I mention my consumption of canned corned beef. Their scorn and derision humour me.
This version is simple and is a low-carbohydrate, minimalist version of corned beef. Apart from the fat sandwich of course. 😉
Microsoft Copilot generated image of me with a plate of corned beef, white sauce, and potato mash.
Unwrap the meat and wash it under running tap water to remove the brine and sugar.
Place the beef into the cooking vessel.
Add a cup of water.
Slowly cook on low heat for eight hours.
Remove the meat from the slow cooker.
Pass the cooking liquor[vii] through a sieve and refrigerate the broth.
With gloved hands, gently dissect the fat from the flesh using fingers to separate the layer of fat according to the fascial plane.
The fat layer makes for a fantastic sandwich on lavishly buttered white sourdough bread[viii]. There’s nothing like the sensation of the beef fat dripping down your hands and forearms as you slowly take bites from the sandwich and masticate the unctuous beef fat. The only reaction you can have is to smile.
Place the beef into a container and seal it. Refrigerate the meat.
Cut the cold meat into lunch-sized portions.
Dice a portion of cold corned beef and place the diced meat in a frypan.
Add beef broth or water to the frypan and bring it to a simmer until the meat fibres start to separate and soften.
After the water has mostly evaporated, turn off the heat, add a dash of cream and stir.
Beef silverside fat sandwich.
Ingredients
Cooked corned beef.
Frozen sourdough baguette — thawed.
Grass-fed butter
Freshly cracked pepper corns
Dijon mustard
Instructions
Trowel butter onto a piece of thawed sourdough bread. Freezing sourdough bread develops resistant starch.
Add dollops of Dijon mustard.
Apply a layer of warm fat.
Season with freshly cracked peppercorns.
Cover your lap with a large dish drying cloth and wear a bib.
Roll up your sleeves and get stuck into the sandwich.
Rejoice in the feeling of the fat running down your chin and down your forearms.
These are a gallery of photographs. Select one image and scroll through the rest.
Thoughts on the meal
I enjoy corned beef hash[x]; it’s a dish I grew up with. Among many other meals, my dad would often make it. He learned to prepare it during his boyhood in the South Pacific during World War II, where fresh meat was hard to come by. The only options available were tinned meat or local game.
A piece of corned silverside is an affordable option for bulk meat in lunches.
This piece of beef cost approximately $AUD20, or $AUD10/kilogram. If I can get four meals (possibly six meals), it will work out to about $AUD5/meal.
The first meal (the fat sandwich) for this piece of beef brought back some great memories when Mum would make corned beef and I’d get the fat and make a sandwich. I savoured every bite of this open sandwich and enjoyed the contrasting flavours of the pickle.
Questions
Do you like corned beef?
Do you like fat sandwiches?
How would you make a fat sandwich?
Stay tuned
I’ll add photographs of how I use the rest of the beef during the week.
Endnotesꜜ
[i] The modern clinical term is “clinical adiposity.” I prefer the term fat because it is universally understood.
[ii] The term corned comes from the old English word corn, which referred to small, hard particles—not just cereal grains. In the case of corned beef, it refers to the large-grained rock salt (sometimes called “corns” of salt) used in the curing process.
[iii] Corned beef is a type of salt-cured beef, traditionally made from brisket.
[iv] Canned corned beef is a shelf-stable meat product made primarily from beef, but it includes ingredients to preserve flavour and texture. The ingredients include sodium nitrite, added salt, and a small amount of sugar (which is disappointing). Cooking can convert the nitrites to nitrates.
[v] “Spud” is a casual or slang term for a potato. For example, “baked spud” or “mashed spuds.” It is used in many English-speaking countries.
[vi]Beef silverside is a lean, boneless cut of beef taken from the hindquarter of the cow, specifically from the top portion of the round primal, just above the leg muscles. It’s known for its coarse grain and minimal marbling, which makes it a budget-friendly and versatile option in many cuisines.
[viii] Bread is high carbohydrate and not part of a low carbohydrate diet.
[ix] A note about the images used in this post. The featured image and a couple of other images were generated with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. I’m conscious that there are some bloggers and readers who oppose the use of large language models for generating content. I’m comfortable with using large language models to help with content on YummyLummy.com
[x] Corned beef hash is a hearty, savoury dish made by combining chopped or shredded corned beef with diced potatoes and onions, then frying the mixture until it’s golden and crispy. It’s a classic comfort food with roots in frugal cooking—originally designed to use up leftovers, especially from a corned beef dinner.
