About a week back I picked up a copy of Decolonize Your Diet - a fabulous book of Mexican recipes featuring indigenous ingredients. Flipping through I immediately honed in on the Chipotle Pumpkin Soup Alchemy recipe. It's been cold of late (December, who'd a thunk it), soup a rich soup with some kick sounded heavenly. By using canned pumpkin, homemade stock, and some shredded chicken that I always have in the fridge this easily became a weeknight meal.
Like all great recipes it started with sauteeing an onion and some garlic. There are few smells I enjoy as much as onions and garlic cooking on the stove. To that you add some cumin, coriander, a cinnamon stick, and a chopped chipotle in adobo. Then you throw in your canned pumpkin and stock. The original recipe is vegan, but I love me some meat so I subbed in my homemade chicken stock for the veggie stock.
Then you pretty much let it simmer until it reaches the consistency you want. I added a little too much stock (because that was the size of my container of frozen stock), so I let it reduce for an extra half an hour until the soup became thick and velvety.
When you're ready to eat turn off the heat and add lime juice and salt, tasting continually, until you reach the balance of flavors you like. Garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds and cilantro (I added also added shredded chicken and crema) for a delicious meal. The garnishes really make the soup. You need the crunch of the pepitas for texture and the brightness of the cilantro to cut the richness of the pumpkin. The crema does a wonderful job soothing the bite of the chiles for the spice averse (I'm a wimp and I'm ok with that).
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