French Onion Soup in a Pumpkin
When you want sumptuous something and you want it now
“Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.”
—Gertrude Stein
Pumpkin Soup in a Pumpkin is the most beautiful “one-pot” meal — Cheese-filled, or Vegan!
I learned this recipe from an art professor at Alfred University, in upstate New York. He threw me the most delicious dinner party I’ve ever attended. This pumpkin soup qualifies as both sculpture and performance art.
Professor's recipe used real cheese and cream. Heaven.
I tried making my pumpkin soup “vegan-style”, and to my delight, it was just as fantastic, and I could eat twice as much without getting a tummy-ache. None of my tasters could tell that I made it without dairy products— they all thought I was creaming them to death.
Ready? Try both, and tell me what you like the most!
Pumpkin Prep - The Size and the Lid
Select a pumpkin that looks like it could handle 2-3 quarts of soup inside. At the same time, it has to be "not too big," so you can easily get it into your oven, on a shallow, solid, baking pan or sheet.
Cut the pumpkin open at the top, and when you do, cut at an angle, so that your knife drives in towards the center. What you want is a pumpkin “lid” that is wider at its skin-top, and narrower at its meat-bottom.
Leave the pumpkin stem attached! That's your handle.
The lid/hole needs to be big enough that you can easily scoop out the soup and pumpkin meat with a serving spoon, when it's all done.
For your typical big jack o'lantern, I'd say about 5-6 inches....
If you blow the carving, don't worry, it’s not imperative. The angled lid is the ideal shape so that it doesn’t “drop in” during the cooking, when the pumpkin expands and softens.
The Scoop Out
Scoop out the seeds and the funky membrane stuff.
With a sharp spoon or scraper, scrape the interior of the pumpkin, until it is 1” thick.
Save the pumpkin meat.
Place your pumpkin in a shallow baking dish or baking sheet with a lip. Do this now, because you won't be able to lift it later, otherwise! The filling is very heavy.
The Soup
In a dutch oven or big saucepan, sauté three chopped sweet onions and a bulb of garlic in butter or olive oil.
Add a quart of broth, either chicken, turkey, or vegetable. (Feel free to just open up four cans of broth from the supermarket).
Heat it up in a big saucepan and add the pumpkin meat you scraped out.
To the simmering broth, add some oregano, a couple of carrots, bay leaf, pepper. (Don’t add salt if you’re using the canned broth... it’s already salty).
Cook your broth until carrot and pumpkin are soft.
Remove the carrots and the bay leaf.
Blend the soup with a potato masher, or beater. Don't worry about making it perfectly smooth, chunky is ok.
Add 3 cups of plain nondairy milk — or milk, or half & half—, a tablespoon of nutmeg, a couple shakes of cloves, and some salt and pepper to taste.
Heat until it's almost ready to boil.
Watch it, so you don't curdle your milk. Take the saucepan off the stove and set it up next to your prepped pumpkin waiting on its baking tray.
Bread and Cheese
Now for the bread part. Your goal is to ladle your “soup” into the pumpkin between layers of bread and cheese.
You have a choice here: You can buy a package of the gourmet croutons they sell at your yuppie market.
Or use a dry loaf of Challah or Sourdough bread and break it into chunks.
Dry it out so it’s crunchy. You want stale bread, fresh bread won’t work.
Do not use ANY other kind of breads than what I mentioned— they won’t taste right. If you go the crouton method, make sure they the big garlicky ones, not the little buggers people buy in a bag to make Thanksgiving stuffing.
For the cheese, get a pound of Swiss, Jarlsburg or Gruyere. Grate up a package, or if it come in slices, that’s perfect.
You can also use Swiss-style Tofu-rella... I promise you this will taste GRAND, and you will fool EVERYONE.
Ladle the broth into the pumpkin, alternating between chunks of bread/croutons, and handfuls/slices of cheese. This is the fun part.
Getting In & Out of the Oven
By now, your pumpkin is full and heavy. Put the pumpkin lid on, gently. It doesn't have to fit tight.
Lube the outside surface of the pumpkin with olive oil. Spray oil is easy. This will make it brown— it will look spectacular.
Cook at 425 degrees until browning... try 30 minutes on your timer for starters. It all depends on the size of your pumpkin.
To test: Just ease the oven rack out and check the inside with a fork. Is the interior flesh tender? You’r done.
Be VERY careful taking the pumpkin out, it will be heavy.
Have it in a SOLID shallow baking pan so if something breaks or spills, you’re not wrecked or burned.
Now serve to your flabbergasted guests.
This soup is UNREAL.... people will be crying and gesticulating. You can handle it. Save a nice big hot bowl for yourself.
I want to make this for the fam for solstice dinner. 8 people. Vegan! But we will have to do single serving pumpkin bowls because all the other pumpkins are gone from the stores now. I think it will work fine, right? Actually I think I’ll do 1 pumpkin per two people so we can get all four pumpkins into the oven at the same time. Do you think this recipe will serve 8 in pumpkins that hold maybe 20 to 24 oz of soup each? We’ll have lots of other food too so we do t need huge servings of soup.
My pumpkin and I have waited for this direction for more than a month. An honor to receive and connect to the stars and soil, the Sun and water in the delicious realm of mother nurture! Thank you Susie.