Here I am continuing with the theme on using bread as an ingredient in all the meals this week. So I am sharing the recipe for spiced croutons served with a roasted pumpkin chickpea soup. This soup is a comforting dinnertime meal, perfect now as we approach winter in Australia. The soup is hearty enough to serve as a complete meal. It is vegetarian and dairy-free if that’s your thing. Further it will be ready in 30-35 minutes. So what’s not to love about it.
All about Spiced Croutons
I had a chunk of bread loaf leftover after all the bread baking. This day old stale bread is ideal for making the perfect crunchy croutons – Pour over olive oil with spices of choice and roast at a low temperature in the oven. Stale bread soaks in oil like a sponge and gets all crispy in the oven. For the crouton spice rub, I toasted and then crushed cumin seeds, coriander seeds, chilli flakes and sea salt in a pestle and mortar. Toasting spices makes all the difference. I have learnt that this definitely enhances all the flavour in a dish.
Roasted Pumpkin, Chickpeas and Soup
I roasted half a butternut squash with skin on. Don’t bother to remove the skin as it caramelises while roasting creating a deep flavour. The base of the soup is just sautéing chopped onions in olive oil with freshly ground cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and turmeric powder.
Adding Creaminess to the Soup – Notice the soup contains no coconut milk that many vegan based recipes love to incorporate. I have nothing against coconut milk. Just that I wanted to keep the calorie count low and also bring out the heat from the spices. So I skipped using coconut milk. Besides the chickpeas and pumpkin once blended, add adequate creaminess to the soup. I also blended a handful of soaked cashew nuts to create a thick paste to add on top of the soup with the spiced croutons.
Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions or your thoughts. If you like the recipe for spiced croutons served with a roasted pumpkin chickpea soup, please do leave a rating below. Don’t forget to tag #urbanfoodlover and follow along on Instagram for lots of Foodie Inspiration 🙂
Spiced Croutons with Roasted Pumpkin Chickpea Soup
Equipment
- oven
- Blender
Ingredients
For the Spiced Croutons
- 2-3 slices Day old or stale sandwich bread cut into squares
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds roasted and crushed
- 1/2 tsp coriander seeds roasted and crushed
- 1/4 tsp red chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
For the Roasted Pumpkin Chickpea Soup
- 300 grams Butternut Squash About half a medium sized Squash
- 250 grams chickpeas boiled and cooked. Canned chickpeas are fine
- 200 ml Vegetable Stock Homemade or very low salt Veggie stock
- 1 medium onion finely diced
- 1 knob ginger thumbsize piece, grated
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/4 tsp coriander seeds roasted and crushed
- 1/4 tsp cumin seeds roasted and crushed
- 1-2 dried bay leaf
- 3 black cardamoms
- 3-4 green cardamoms
- 3-4 black cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil For roasting the butternut squash
- 1 tbsp olive oil For sautéing the spices and veggies
For the Soup Toppings
- 12-14 raw cashews soaked in hot water atleast for 30 min
- 1 tbsp cilantro or parsley finely chopped
- 1-2 wedges lemon
Instructions
Make the Spiced Croutons
- Pre-heat oven to 180 deg centigrade.
- Place the cubed bread slices in a baking tray. Pour over the olive oil and crushed spices.
- Massage the spices all over the cubed bread slices. Roast in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 min until the bread pieces turn golden brown. As oven temperatures vary, keep checking after 10 min to ensure the bread is not burning.
Make the Roasted Pumpkin Chickpea Soup
- Roast the pumpkin / butternut squash in a preheated oven for 20 min after spreading the 1 tbsp olive oil and some sea salt on it.
- While the pumpkin is roasting, in a large stock pot heat the olive oil. Add in the diced onions, bay leaf, black + green cardamoms and cinnamon stick. Saute for 2-3 min until the onions turn translucent.
- Next add in the grated ginger , turmeric powder, ground cumin seeds, coriander seeds and salt.
- Once the spices are nicely coated , add in the cooked chickpeas and about half the vegetable stock. Cook for few minutes.
- Once the pumpkin is roasted , remove from oven and cut into large chunks. Add in these chunks into the stock pot with the remaining vegetable stock. Cook for few minutes more.
- If you have a hand blender, switch off the cooking and you can start to blend the soup in the stock pot itself. Otherwise use a normal blender (that lets you blends soup) – Pour over all the ingredients from the stock pot into it and blend.
Make the Toppings
- Ladle the soup into bowls. Top with the spiced croutons and chopped parsley/cilantro
- Separately blend the soaked cashew nuts with few spoons of water in a small blender jar to form a thick paste. Spoon over 1-2 tbsp cashew paste over the soup bowls.
