Jamie Oliver’s pumpkin soup with pear and chestnuts
The perfect soup for the season is without a doubt this delicious pumpkin soup with pear and chestnuts.
Jamie Oliver’s pumpkin soup with pear and chestnuts
I recently received the Dutch version of Jamie Oliver’s latest addition ‘Together‘ I love the book, as I love all Jamie’s books. I had to pick one of the recipes to make and after some careful consideration I decided to go for an autumn favorite of mine; pumpkin soup with pear.
Jamie makes his pumpkin soup with pear and serves it with a crostini with mushrooms and chestnuts. Instead of going for the crostini I decided to add the chestnuts and the mushrooms to the actual soup. I’m eating enough gluten as it is.. 🙂
Butternut squash or not
Traditionally you might opt for the butternut squash as that is usually the pumpkin that is most readily available. I would urge you to not do that though for this soup. I used a blue pumpkin which is ridiculously hard so a bit tough to cut, but so tasty!
The difference in flavor is enormous. Once I found out I never went back to the butternut squash which is watery and tasteless in comparison. Any other pumpkin is probably tastier and will enhance the flavor of the pumpkin soup with pear.
Chestnuts
Chestnuts are funny things. You can buy them in a can here or vacuum packed. One thing to keep in mind is to not overcook the chestnuts. I use hot oil and quickly cook them in a hot pan. That way they crisp up a little but don’t become too mushy. If you leave them in the pan for too long, they kind of fall apart.
Serve the mushrooms and the chestnuts over the soup. Together with some fresh parsley.
If you’re a fan of Jamie Oliver be sure to check out the Limoncello trifle and the trapani rigatoni. O and this delicious pumpkin pie of course! They might even all go together! Starter; the pumpkin soup with pear, main the rigatoni and dessert limoncello trifle. That’ll work brilliantly! And you could serve the pumpkin pie with coffee…
Pumpkin soup with pear, chestnuts and mushrooms
Ingredients
- 1/2 pumpkin I used a blue pumpkin. About 1 kilo total
- 1 onion sliced
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 2 ripe pears peeled, in cubes
- 1 liter vegetable stock
- 200 gr mixed mushrooms chopped
- 200 gr cooked chestnuts chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley chopped
- few leaves of sage
- pepper and salt
- Clean the pumpkin, remove the seeds and cut into pieces. I left the skin on.
- Preheat a large soup pan with some olive oil and cook the onion until translucent. Add the garlic and the pumpkin.
- Cook for a few minutes. Add the stock and bring to the boil.
- Add the pear pieces. As soon as the vegetables are soft, use a stick blender to puree the soup.
- In the mean time bake the mushrooms in a frying pan until golden and brown. Add the chopped chestnuts at the last minute and bake these briefly. Bake the sage leaves for a while too.
- Mix the chestnuts and the mushroom with the fresh chopped parsley. Divide the soup over four bowls and serve with the mushroom mixture and the sage leaves.
Nutrition Information per portion
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
