The Sydney Morning Herald logo
Advertisement
Good Food logo

Roast pumpkin soup with chickpeas

Jill Dupleix
Jill Dupleix

Advertisement
Roast pumpkin soup with merguez sausage, chilli, chickpeas and a swirl of rose harissa.
Roast pumpkin soup with merguez sausage, chilli, chickpeas and a swirl of rose harissa.William Meppem

Warm, velvety and simple to make, pumpkin soup is your cold-weather friend. And by adding chickpeas and merguez sausages, you turn soup into dinner.

Advertisement

Ingredients

  • 1.2kg butternut pumpkin

  • 1 onion, unpeeled, halved

  • 1 tomato, halved

  • 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

  • 3 tbsp olive oil

  • 4 fresh merguez or chorizo sausages

  • 1 fresh red chilli

  • 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

  • 750ml vegetable stock

  • 2 tbsp tomato paste

  • 2 tsp rose harissa, plus extra to serve

  • ½ cup parsley or coriander sprigs

Method

  1. 1. Heat oven to 180C fan-forced (200C conventional). Roughly chop the pumpkin (no need to peel), and arrange with onion, tomato and garlic on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

    2. Coat the vegetables with 2 tbsp olive oil, scatter with sea salt and black pepper, and bake for 45-55 minutes, removing the tomato and garlic, and turning the pumpkin after 30 minutes. Transfer vegetables to a chopping board until cool enough to handle.

    3. Toss the sausages, chilli and 2 tbsp of the chickpeas in remaining olive oil and bake for 20 minutes (use the same tray to save on dishes).

    4. In the meantime, squeeze the garlic cloves out of the skins, and discard onion skins and pumpkin skins and seeds. Roughly chop the vegetables, and tip into a large saucepan.

    5. Add vegetable stock, tomato paste, harissa, remaining chickpeas, sea salt and pepper, and bring to the boil. Simmer, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes.

    6. Blend the soup in batches in a food processor or blender until smooth and velvety, and serve in warm bowls. Slice the sausages and finely slice the chilli. Arrange sausages and chilli on top with crisped chickpeas, extra harissa and herbs.

    Tips

    Butternut pumpkin is perfect for this recipe, or mix it up with Japanese pumpkin. Bake with the skin on, then peel later.

    When you cook pumpkin in water, the liquid dilutes the flavour. When you cook pumpkin in the oven, you reduce the water content, intensifying the natural flavour.

    Swap out spicy merguez or chorizo sausages for frankfurts, kofta, pan-roasted mushrooms or grilled eggplant.

The best recipes from Australia's leading chefs straight to your inbox.

Sign up
Jill DupleixJill Dupleix is a Good Food contributor and reviewer who writes the Know-How column.

From our partners

Advertisement
Advertisement

Similar Recipes

More by Jill Dupleix