Roasted Pumpkin Soup

* receipe adopted from Gordon Ramsay's "Christmas with Gordon"

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pureep
pumpkin - around 1.5kg
1 head of garlic - cut horizontally
Rosemay sprigs
olive oil, to drizzle

Soup:
800ml chicken ham stock **
1 onion, peeled and minced
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
30g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
100ml double cream
15g butter

** For Vegetarian version, replace chicken stock with vegetable stock


How to Make:
1. Preheat oven to 170'C.

2. Cut pumpkin into half horizontally, then remove all seeds. Score the flesh, season wtih salt & pepper, then rub with the garlic halves.

3. Lay rosemary sprigs and the garlic half in each of the pumpkin half. Drizzle with olive oil and place on baking trays and roast in oven for 1 hr or until tender.

4. You can test if pumpkin flesh is soft enough with poking a fork into it. Once tender enough, remove from oven. Reserve the garlic and throw away the rosemary. Scoop out all the pumpkin flesh and puree in a food processor. (if the food processor does not move, add a bit of the chicken stock to soften it).

5. For the soup, heat some olive oil in a large pot, then add the minced onion and cook them until soft and translucent. Scoop the flesh from the garlic halves and add to the pot. Then add the grated nutmeg and saute for 1-2min.

6. Stir in the pumpkin puree and grated parmesan cheese, then pour in the stock. Bring to boil, then lower to heat and simmer for 10-12 min Stir in the cream and butter and heat for 1 min,

7. In batches, laddle the soup to the blender and blend until smooth. Pour the blended soup to a clean pot. Reheat and serve, perhaps with a dash of cream or some shavings of Parmesan cheese on top.

Enjoy~