Once again, a recipe for pumpkin soup appears in the newspaper. The last time I allowed myself this cliché was five Halloweens ago. Even then I more or less apologized for it, writing that there were already so many pumpkin soup recipes in circulation and that they are rarely spectacular. Tasty, if it’s good. Nutritious, yes. Satisfying, too. But a culinary tour de force?
Oh, why make it so difficult? At this time of year I regularly cook pumpkin soup. Browsing through my recipe archive I found at least twelve recipes for it, most of which have never been published. You would almost suspect that I am secretly working on a pumpkin soup cookbook; Would there be a market for that? If there are twelve possible variations on something like this, then there are at least forty, right?
Anyway, we’re just giving in to it today. But which soup should I serve you? The one with lentils, curry and apple, my mother would probably suggest. I made it for her once last fall and she loved it so much that she had cooked it for her sisters within two days. Or the spicy coconut pumpkin soup with shrimp that was a favorite the year before? The one with lots of spices, thick yogurt and coriander?
I already know, it will be the pumpkin-pepper-cream soup that I made four Octobers ago, the week my father was dying. As everyone knows, in such sad times there are often many mouths to feed, while there should be good food. Then a pan of velvety vegetable soup is a solution. It can be spooned from a bowl while standing, if necessary, slides easily through choked throats and makes you nice and warm inside.
This also happened with the pumpkin and pepper soup, which I cooked at home with ingredients that happened to be available and took with me to my parental home. Even my father tasted a few spoonfuls of it; it was one of the last things I fed him, and from what I could tell from his face, he liked it too.
By the way, it can certainly be called professional deformation that I still made notes about the soup under these circumstances. A few scribbles, nothing more, but enough to revive him last week. Yes, it was still tasty. But now that my throat was no longer constricted, something was missing too. Something to bite on. Something crunchy.
I have previously praised the double-roasted chickpeas that you can buy in Turkish supermarkets, and also in some supermarkets, on the shelf with Turkish products, under the name sari leblebi. They include the brands Miras and Tadim. These dry, twice-roasted chickpeas have a great bite, so I often use them as croutons in soup.
The only disadvantage of this ready-made garnish is that the peas rely mainly on their crunchiness and not so much on their taste. (The first thing that comes to mind when I want to describe that taste is dusty. But dusty in a not-unpleasant way.) That’s why we roast our chickpeas ourselves in the recipe below. After all, when you roast them yourself, you can add as much flavor as you want. Okay, they don’t get as crispy as sari leblebi, but crispy enough, and also really exciting in taste. This way you can turn such a good pumpkin soup into an exciting dish.
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