Pumpkin soup help required, please?

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I just made this pumpkin soup and it is vile. There's no depth to the flavour and it's just horrible.

Could it be that the pumpkin was grown for size rather than flavour?

Is there anything I can do to it to improve it?

Anyone?

Bit of curry powder? chilli? stock cube? tomato puree?

nutmeg.

You can cheat and add some roasted, blended butternut squash - I did this last year and it was fab...

a carton of coconut cream

and a lots of spices,

then chilli oil or pumpkin oil

and maybe a dollop of creme fraiche to serve

Thanks for all your ideas. I'll go with the spices and nutmeg and whatever else is in the cupboard. I'll let you know if it improves it.

Try some creme fraiche, a veg stock cube (or two) and lots of coriander and black pepper.

My Thai friend does the best one using mustard powder and some cream only.

IME all pumkin soup tastes like shit unless it has enough other veg to disguise the fact that it is pumpkin soup.

HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst

I couldn't find it either.

My Pumpkin Soup recipe is

Olive Oil
1 large Onion chopped.
1 large pumpkin
Chicken stock
salt and Black pepper.

1. Cut up pumpkin remove seeds. Put a little olive oil salt and pepper and roast for 40 to 60mins gas 6, until browned and cooked through.

Once cooled remove skin and chop into chunks.

2. Fry onion for 5mins add pumpkin and stock and water if needed to cover. Cook for 30min blend into a smooth soup. Check seasoning add if needed.

3. serve with a handful of grated cheese.

It one from Delia Smith book of soups. She adds garlic, but we don't like garlic as we find it over powers the soup.

I have a stooooopid question. When I cut the pumpkin, how big should the chunks be before roasting? And is it easy to get the skin off after roasting?

Lizziemum, thanks for the recipe - even I might give it a go.

HFTBETW - Roast it. Cut into melon boat size/quarters wedges, having deseeded. Roast on high for about 30-40 mins.

Scoop out pulp. This saves hacking away at it raw.

Whilst pumpkin cooking, fry onions and garlic slowly. Dry fry herbs of choice for 2 mins eg coriander seed, caraway, cumin. Bash up with pestle and mortar. Add spices, pumpkin flesh and veg stock - vary amount dependent on how thick you like it - cook for about 5 mins, then blitz.

Its the roasing that provides the depth of flavour, along with the slow cook of onions. The spices add layers.

If you like it extra creamy, once blitzed add some creme fraiche.

BN -The smaller the chunks the quicker they cook, but they go a little dry, so if you've the time, then I'd suggest big pieces. Drizzle with a little olive oil.

If its cooked well, you should be able to scoop out the flesh.

Are you trying to salvage the one you've already made?

my best hint for that is to roast loads of chopped onions with mixed herbs and then stir it all into the soup (you'll need to do that whilst re-heating the soup)

if you've already eaten the horrid one, then use a different recipe next time.

my normal recipe is similar to lizziemum's, but I use marigold swiss bouillion powder for the stock (make it up as on the packet), and I also add a teaspoon of coriander.

thanks taffetacat

Make sure you use a good pumpkin, with a good depth of flavour like Crown Prince.

You can't really make a decent soup with the lantern type pumpkin, they're too watery.

You can usually get Crown Prince from an Asian shop or sometimes a farmers market.

You can easily recognise them, they have a grey green skin and the flesh is a very deep orange.

Pumpkin has a rather bland flavour imo, i made one this weekend and it was nowhere near as delicious as the one i made using a butternut squash and parsnip version.
I use cumin, all spice, cinamon and ginger plus a little of lazy garlic though the recipe said just two onions and pumpkin. It would have been very boring if i hadn't added the extra spices!
Was going to make a pumpkin pie but as the soup wasn't that tasty i didn't bother.

I was the same - couldn't find anything mentioning a pumpkin soup recipe on that website tho i caught up with the X factor goss