Pumpkin Soup

Soup, Soups & Stews

Smooth pumpkin soup that tastes deeply savoury and earthy, with sweet notes from the pumpkin balanced by butter and crème fraîche. The nutmeg adds subtle warmth without being obvious, just enough to make you wonder what that background note is. It's rich and velvety, coating your mouth with autumn flavours, roasted pumpkin, butter, cream, without ever feeling heavy.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr

Servings 6

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Ingredients  

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• 1,5 kg pumpkin potiron or potimarron work best
• 300 gr potatoes
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 l vegetable stock
• 200 ml crème fraîche
• 50 gr unsalted butter
• 1 pinch nutmeg freshly grated
• 2 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs thyme
• salt and black pepper

Equipment

• 1 dutch oven
• 1 hand blender or regular blender
• knife
• chopping board
• ladle
• wooden spoon

Instructions

1. 1. Prepare the vegetables

   Start with the worst bit, peeling the pumpkin. Unless you've got potimarron, which brilliantly doesn't need peeling. Cut everything into rough 3cm chunks. The potatoes too. Don't overthink it. They're all getting blended anyway.
2. 2. Sweat the aromatics

   Melt your butter in the pot over medium heat. When it's foaming, add your chopped onion. Let it go translucent and soft, about 5 minutes. You're not looking for colour here. Add the garlic for the last minute, any longer and it'll burn.
3. 3. Add the main vegetables

   Tip in all your pumpkin and potato chunks. Give everything a proper stir so it's all coated in that buttery, oniony base. Let it all sweat together for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The edges should just start to soften.
4. 4. Add liquid and herbs

   Pour in your stock. It should just cover the vegetables, if you need more liquid, use water, not more stock. Drop in your bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a gentle simmer.
5. 5. Simmer until tender

   Partially cover with a lid and let it bubble away gently for 25-30 minutes. The vegetables should be completely soft, collapsing when prodded with a spoon. Fish out the herbs.
6. 6. Blend until smooth

   Blend until absolutely, completely smooth. Use a hand blender directly in the pot if you've got one. Otherwise, carefully transfer to a regular blender in batches. We're after velvet here, not rustic chunks.
7. 7. Finish with cream

   Return to low heat if you've transferred it. Stir in the crème fraîche. Season with salt, white pepper (black shows as specks), and just a dash of nutmeg. Taste and adjust.
8. 8. Serve properly

   Ladle into warmed bowls. Add croutons if you've made them. A final swirl of cream looks nice if you're trying to impress someone!

Notes

• The secret’s in the texture, blend it longer than you think necessary. Properly smooth makes all the difference.
• If it’s too thick, thin with stock or water. Too thin? Let it reduce with the lid off for 10 minutes.
• Make it a day ahead if you can, it actually improves overnight.
• Freezes brilliantly for up to 3 months.
• And if you can’t find crème fraîche, double cream works fine, just use a bit less.

About this recipe

Pumpkin Soup is autumn in a bowl for most of France. The recipe varies wildly depending on which grandmother you ask, some swear by a glass of white wine in the soup, others add chestnuts (particularly in the southwest), and in Provence they might slip in some orange zest.

The whole thing started as peasant food, as always. Pumpkins keep for months in a cold cellar, making them perfect for winter eating when not much else was growing. The addition of potatoes came later, after Parmentier convinced the French that potatoes weren’t just for animals in the late 1700s.

In the Berry region (dead centre of France), they make a version called Citrouillat that includes milk rather than cream and gets baked with a pastry lid. Mad, but surprisingly good. Meanwhile in Normandy, they’ll add apple and sometimes Calvados because, well, Normandy.

The potimarron variety, that red kuri squash you see in every French market come October, only arrived from Japan in the 1950s. Before that, it was all about the potiron, those massive, slightly flattened orange things that look like they’ve been sat on. Some can weigh 20 kilos. You’ll see them sold by the slice at markets because honestly, who can eat a whole one?

French kids often hate this soup with remarkable passion, probably because it shows up every autumn whether they want it or not. Then they grow up, move away, and suddenly find themselves craving their grandmother’s soupe au potiron. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

The crème fraîche is non-negotiable for most French cooks. They’d rather skip the soup entirely. Though sometimes, they might use fromage blanc stirred through at the end. But they’d never admit it.