Skip to main content
Main

West Indian Pumpkin Soup

A spicy pumpkin and sweet potato soup with coconut milk, curry, and roasted pumpkin seeds.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

West Indian Pumpkin Soup

Oven350°F
Time1–1½ hours

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the vegetables

  1. In a mixing bowl, toss squash and sweet potatoes with melted butter, brown sugar, salt and black pepper.

  2. Spread mixture onto a greased roasting pan.

  3. Bake at 350°F for 1–1½ hours, or until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Saute onion in oil in a large pot until tender, about 5 minutes.

  2. Add the scotch bonnet, garlic, and ginger and cook just until fragrant.

  3. Add the thyme, orange zest, curry powder, nutmeg, cinnamon stick, and bay leaves, mixing everything thoroughly.

  4. When it becomes sticky, add the roasted vegetables and stir to mix.

  5. Add the chicken stock, stirring to keep blending everything.

  6. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove soup from heat and allow to cool for 15 minutes.

  2. Puree approximately 1/3 of the soup in a blender until it is smooth.

  3. Add the pureed soup back to the pot and stir well.

  4. Add heavy cream and coconut milk and blend.

  5. Reheat if necessary.

  6. May also be chilled before serving up to 1 day.

  7. Serve cold or hot, garnished with roasted pumpkin seeds (if desired).

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1095Calories
42 gProtein
63 gFat
97 gCarbs

Counts 20 of 24 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 20 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Coconut1/2 cup shredded (40g)283
Chicken100g cooked165
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Turmeric1 tsp ground (3g)9
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Pumpkinnot in our table0
Scotchnot in our table0
Seednot in our table0
Pepitanot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Sweet potato + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Pumpkin + sweet potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Garlic + gingertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Sweet potato + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together631 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooking pumpkin or butternut squash
Provides the bulk and sweet, creamy body of the soup once roasted and pureed.
Sweet potatoes
Add starch that thickens the soup and adds natural sweetness and smoothness.
Brown sugar
Caramelizes during roasting, deepening browning and sweetness in the vegetables.
Chicken stock
Supplies the liquid base that carries the flavours and makes the soup pourable.
Heavy cream
Adds fat that gives the finished soup a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Coconut milk
Adds fat and a mild sweetness that rounds out the spice and softens the heat.

The step that matters

Puree only about a third of the soup. Pureeing part of the soup thickens it with starch from the vegetables while leaving pieces for texture. Blending all of it at once can make the soup gluey, and the hot liquid must be allowed to cool briefly before blending for safety.

Swap the pumpkin

The recipe marks pumpkin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, sugar, pepper, onion, garlic, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, sugar, pepper, onion, garlic, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Sweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes