30 Days of Hind Hart | Thai Pumpkin Soup by Brittany | Day 19

 

THAI PUMPKIN SOUP

I know this is our second soup recipe, but I will take any opportunity I get to make this soup. It is my all time favourite and I really don’t ever get sick of it! The best part, it takes about 15 minutes to make! I will post the exact recipe below and then take you through each step.

2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil or coconut oil

1 large onion, peeled, chopped

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 1/2 cups canned pumpkin

2 tablespoons ginger paste or ginger cubes

1 garlic clove, peeled, chopped

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 tablespoon chopped green chilies

3/4 cup coconut cream

3/4 cup coconut milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt & pepper

 Here are all of the ingredients, a lot of these are things that I usually have in my house now aside from the canned pumpkin, coconut milk and cream.

These three ingredients are the most important and can be purchased wrong if you are anything like me. First, you want to make sure you don’t buy pumpkin pie filling. The cans look pretty much the same but one is filled with sugar and the one you want to use is 100% pumpkin puree. This can be found in the baking section of any grocery store and I recommend the E.D. Smith brand. The second thing is coconut milk, and again this can be purchased wrong. You don’t want to buy the kind of coconut milk that you actually drink, this coconut milk can be found in the oriental section of any grocery store and it’s in a can not a box! Then lastly, the coconut cream. I’m not going to lie, this was one of the hardest things to find at the grocery store. I still don’t remember exactly what section it is in but it’s not with the coconut milk! You can also only purchase this at superstore, sobey’s does not carry this product. If you ask someone who works there they are likely to have no idea and tell you that it’s the same as coconut milk… it’s not. You should only have this problem if you live in Cape Breton by the way! Anyway if you can’t find it, ask someone where the “Grace” products are. It is a very small section and I believe it is in the soft drinks aisle. I hope this helps because the first time I went to make this I said I would never make it again, the second time I tried making the soup with double the amount of coconut milk and no coconut cream. Don’t do this, the coconut cream is really sweet and makes the flavour of the soup!

Let’s get started, First pour two table spoons of olive oil or coconut oil into a large pot.

This is literally the hardest part and it’s not hard at all. Chop your one large onion and sauté in pot. I chopped mine pretty large because I am blending it in the vitamix. If you are using a regular blender I would definitely chop your onions a lot smaller so you don’t end up with big chunks in your soup.

Once your onion is nice and soft, you can then add your one tablespoon of tomato paste.

Immediately after you add your tomato paste, you will then go on to add your 2 1/2 cups of canned pumpkin and 3 cups of chicken or vegetable broth.

Then you can add your peeled, chopped garlic clove.

Stir ingredients till nice and hot, don’t let it burn!

Like I said before, if you are using a regular blender you want to make sure there are minimum chunks in your mixture. Also, the vitamix blender is pretty large and after all the ingredients are added it’s still almost filled to the brim. If your blender looks smaller than this I will recommend blending the soup in two batches. If you need to do this, you will have to cut the remaining ingredients in half when adding to each batch.

You can now carefully pour your mixture into your blender/vitamix. I usually do it in the sink because the mixture will splatter everywhere no matter how slow you do it. You can also get your green chillies ready, this is another important part. I used jalapeno’s this time because I couldn’t find the green chillies at superstore (oh yes, apparently you can only buy green chillies at Sobeys). I recommend using the chillis if you can, they have a much different flavour than the jalapenos. The recipe calls for one tablespoon, however I would start out with less than that and add them to taste. (Especially if you aren’t a big spicy person!)

Next you need to add your 3/4 cup of coconut milk and cream.

It’s pretty tricky to measure this coconut cream so I just add the whole box. I am pretty sure it’s accurate anyway but to save yourself some mess just do this.

Now we just need to add those green chillies and a tablespoon of lemon juice!

If you are using a Vitamix, you can blend till the soup is hot enough to eat. If you are using a regular blender I would say just blend till it looks smooth and chunk free. The soup will be pretty warm anyway since the bulk of it just came off the stove but you may need to pop it in the microwave for a few seconds. If you want to add more spice then throw a few more pieces of green chillies in there, and of course some salt & pepper. I made myself a toasted, smoked meat sandwich on whole grain bread with hummus, mixed greens, mustard, avocado and mozzarella cheese. Oh and the soup is topped off with some sour cream, but you can also use greek yogurt. I usually garnish with some fresh cilantro but I forgot to pick some up at the g-store. Another yummy garnish for this soup is peanuts! And there you have it, the perfect lunch 🙂

ENJOY!