Hearty Pumpkin & Bell Pepper Soup

Ok, so more power to bell peppers! But see, when I have 2 large yellow and red peppers, it’s a sin to not use them in everything I make. So after the fried rice, the peppers found themselves in a soup. Actually it started off with G&A’s effusive encouragement for this blog. Then of course I had to treat them to “The Weekend Epicurean” meal! And last week saw one of those rare working days when I got home early enough to actually make dinner from scratch. So I thought why not invite G&A home for khaana and utilize the opportunity for my blog too. So course 1 was the soup.

I know the very word ‘pumpkin’ can be very off-putting for a lot of people. But this variety (called “Disco Pumpkin” in Mumbai) is just so cute to look at that I had to buy one! And may I add, with no idea of what to do with it!



I surfed high and low for interesting ways to serve a pumpkin. And gave up. And then I remembered Squash Soup that I had once seen being made on Top Chef. Well, how different is squash from pumpkin, right? So I made up the soup from what little I remembered and the rest, as usual, I improvised. It turned out to be a hearty soup with a dash of spice and A just loved it! But G and Sid who usually hate anything experimental, rewarded me with just an ‘ok’. So all you pumpkin and soup haters, u might want to stay away!




Ingredients:

Disco Pumpkin – 1 small (cubed and boiled)
Sliced Red & Yellow bell peppers – 1 cup
Tomato – ½
Vegetable stock – 1 cup
Rosemary (dried) – ½ tsp
Garam Masala – ½ tsp
Soy sauce – ½ tsp
Garlic – 2-3 cloves
Olive Oil – 2 tbsp
Salt – to taste

In a heavy-bottomed pan, pour in a little olive oil. When sufficiently hot, fry the garlic cloves till golden brown. Add the sliced peppers, salt, garam masala, rosemary, soy sauce and chpped tomato and cook for 5 min. Make sure all the spices are absorbed by the peppers. Add this to the boiled and cubed pumpkin pieces and process in a blender with a little water until smooth. Transfer this to the heavy-bottomed pan, add vegetable stock or water to reach the desired consistency and let the soup come to a boil. Adjust seasoning.

Serve hot with croutons or soup sticks.