Pumpkin Soup (南瓜濃湯）

It is fall and time for pumpkin harvest.  My mom used to cook pumpkins when I was small and I loved its sweetness and its texture.  In my first Halloween in US, I tried to cook the big orange American pumpkin in the way my mom did,  I was disappointed because its taste was totally different from what I remembered.  In recent years,  the Chinese markets in LA have the green and smaller Japanese pumpkins (see picture below) on sale and they do have the same sweetness and texture as the ones I had in Taiwan.  According to Wikipedia, it's called "Kabocha" in North America and it has the following description which I think is quite accurate:  "It is similar in texture and flavor to a pumpkin and sweet potato combined."

Last week, I tried to make the creamy pumpkin soup for the first time. After reviewing a few online recipes, I decided to use a simple recipe from Allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/9191/pumpkin-soup/) with some changes based on my own preference. The result was quite satisfactory so I made it again today in order to get accurate measurements to write the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 small Japanese pumpkin (about 3 cups of pumpkin cubes)
1 small onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 can of chicken broth
1 cup of half and half
2 Tbsp sugar, 3/4 tsp salt for seasoning
1 cup of water

Steps:

1. Remove the pumpkin seeds, skin and cut it into inch-size cubes.  Note-  Kabocha's skin is very very hard and very difficult to cut when it is raw. I learned a trick to make the task easy from a Taiwanese celebrity chef. First boil water in a large pot that is big enough to submerge the pumpkin entirely in the water. After the water is boiling, turn off heat, and put the pumpkin into the water and close the lid for 5 minutes.  Flip the pumpkin and let it sit in the hot water for another 5 minutes. By now the skin should be soft enough to be poked through with a fork without much force. Take the pumpkin out from the hot water, let it cool for a while, then remove the seeds, slice, remove the skin from each slice, and then cut into cubes.

2. Steam the pumpkin cubes in a Rice Cooker for about 30 minutes (I put 1.5 cup of water in the rice cooker and let the rice cooker go through its Cook/Warm cycles). The pumpkin should be very soft when it is done.

3. chop the onion finely and mince the garlic cloves. In a sauce pan, heat 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil, then sauté onion and garlic until they turn light brown.

4. Puree three cups of pumpkin, along with the sautéd onion and garlic, and one cup of chicken broth, using a blender or a food processor.

5. Put the puree into a pot, bring it to boil in medium-to-low heat. Add 2 Tbsp of sugar and 3/4 tsp salt for seasoning. Add one cup of Half-n-Half.  Add more water until the desired thickness is reached. (I added another cup of water).  Simmer for another 5 minutes and the soup is ready.