Pumpkin Soup
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How to Make Juicy Grilled Pumpkin Soup - Grilled Pumpkin on a Grill
Canned homemade pumpkin soup is much more flavorful than store bought, canned pumpkin soup, so why not have a go at Most pumpkin soup recipes are made on the stove top, boiling the chopped pumpkin flesh until it is smooth, then whizzing it to a puree in the blender. Sometimes a pumpkin soup recipe will call for the pumpkin pieces to be roasted before adding them to the soup. Using grilled pumpkin in your pumpkin soup is similar to using roast pumpkin.
Cooking pumpkin on a grill makes it extra juicy and brings out the natural sweetness. This is because the sugar in the pumpkin caramelizes when it is cooked.
If you have a grill, it is well worth grilling the pumpkin pieces (and any other vegetables you are using in the pumpkin soup recipe) before adding them to the soup pot. The resulting soup will taste excellent. You can also use an indoor grill or sauté the pumpkin over a medium high heat in a skillet if you do not have a grill.
How to Cook Pumpkin on a Grill
Chop a pumpkin into big pieces and score the skin on each piece with a fork. Melt some butter and rub it into the pumpkin flesh, then cook the pumpkin indirectly (away from the direct flame) on a medium hot grill, skin side down.
It takes about forty minutes to cook pumpkin on a grill in this way. You can test it with a knife or fork. When you can easily pierce the pumpkin flesh, it is done. If you are using pumpkin slices, instead of chunks, it cooks faster.
If you are wondering how to grill pumpkin seeds, the answer is that you should do these in your oven or in a skillet. You can toast them in a dry skillet over the grill if you want to, of course, since this is similar to cooking them in a dry skillet on the stove.
It is certainly easier to cook your pumpkin seeds on the grill than to keep your eye on the pumpkin seeds in the oven and the pumpkin flesh on the grill at the same time.
Grilled Pumpkin as a Garnish
You might want to add some of your grilled pumpkin to the soup and puree it and use some as a garnish to top the finished soup recipe. If you are going to put a few cubes of grilled pumpkin on top of the soup with some cream, for example, you can put butter or oil and salt and herbs on it before grilling, so it looks nice and tastes extra flavorful. A juicy piece of grilled pumpkin can finish off a classic pumpkin soup perfectly.
You can make pumpkin cubes, pumpkin rings as a pumpkin soup garnish, or you can slice it into slivers after grilling. Another method is to baste the pumpkin with maple syrup or honey as it grills. This goes really nicely with sweet recipes for creamy pumpkin soups or any canned pumpkin soup recipe, which is smooth and pureed.
If you are using a gas grill to grill pumpkin pieces for a garnish, make sure it is nice and hot before adding the pumpkin pieces. This will ensure you get grill marks on them. You need to cook the pumpkin over a medium hot heat anyway so light the grill before you start chopping up the pumpkin.
