"*" See Kitchen Notes for more information or links to special ingredients.
Serve with tortilla chips or apple/sage cornbread. For the apple/sage cornbread, just make buttermilk cornbread and substitute the onion with 1/2 minced apple and 1/4 tsp. dried sage, crumbled.
Roasting Pumpkin – Roasting the pumpkin before scraping out the seeds makes that task easier. After roasting, just use a fork and separate the fibers from the pulp and remove.
Red chile – If you don't have both red chile pods and sauce, you can use just one or the other. Use 1/2 to 1 cup red chile sauce. How much you use depends on how hot your sauce is and how hot you like your soup. If you don’t have chile sauce or time to make it, just tear up 3 or more pods (depending on the heat of the chile) and cook down with the pumpkin pulp. The chile pods will be pureed with the pulp when you blend.
As far as what type of dried red chile, well you know which type I used – New Mexico red chile. However, if you can’t find these, then use your favorite red chile or red chile sauce. I haven’t found a spicy chile that I didn’t like. Just be sure to adjust the amount of chile sauce to the heat level and flavor of the chile. For example, if you use chipotle, cut way back to one or at the most two peppers. Chipotle peppers have a pretty powerful flavor and can easily overpower the pumpkin. You want the chile to complement the pumpkin, not drown it out.
If you purchase a chile sauce, be sure it’s “chile” sauce, not “chili” sauce. There’s a huge difference. Chile sauce is primarily chile peppers, water and salt. Chili sauce is a blend of peppers, vinegar,water, lots of seasoning, and who knows what else. For more on this topic, check out my page “Chile or Chili?“.
The cooking process – This does look like a rather laborious soup to make with the roasting of the pumpkin, the toasting of the spice mix, and the making of the red chile sauce. However, if you are like me, you already have a lot of this on hand. Periodically I make up a batch of cumin/coriander spice mix so it’s available when I need it (recipe below.) One can always find little containers of red chile sauce in my freezer. So really, with a well-stocked spice rack and freezer, the only thing one needs to do is roast the pumpkin and that can be done on the weekend when you have the time. Once you have the roasted pumpkin and the red chile sauce, the making of this soup is easy breezy.
Liquid - Start with 5 and add more if the soup is too thick. I used 4 cup vegetable broth and then added water as needed.
The soup’s thickness – When you originally make the soup, add water, broth or stock to whatever your desired thickness. After the soup sits in the refrigerator for a day or two, it will thicken up, so when you reheat it, be prepared to have to add more liquid.
Cumin/Coriander spice mix – You can make up a small jar of spice mix (below), or just toast 1/2 tsp. each of cumin seeds and coriander seeds in a skillet, grind, and use what you need.
Recipe author: MJ of MJ's Kitchen