Curried Pumpkin Mushroom Soup

Ann Heller became the first restaurant critic for The Journal Herald in 1975 and added writing food stories for that paper in 1977. The Journal was merged with the Dayton Daily News, where she remained restaurant critic and food editor until 2006. During that time, she tested and shared hundreds upon hundreds of recipes with our readers. Now we want to share them with a new generation every week on our subscriber website, MyDaytonDailyNews.com.

You can throw out any other pumpkin soup recipes you may have clipped out to try. This one is the very best.

We created this soup (originally from Turback’s restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., and obtained by Gourmet magazine) to precede a wintry wild game dinner, and both cooks and guests loved it.

The restaurant served the soup out of a hollowed pumpkin.

CURRIED PUMPKIN MUSHROOM SOUP

Makes 6 servings

1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon curry powder

3 cups chicken broth

1 pound can pumpkin puree*

1 tablespoon honey

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup whipping cream

Directions:

In a large, heavy saucepan, cook the mushrooms and onion in the butter, stirring over moderate heat for 3 minutes. The onion should be soft, but not brown. Add the flour and curry powder and cook over low heat, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Remove pan from the heat, add the stock while whisking. Stir in the pumpkin, honey, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer soup, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes. The recipe can be made ahead to this point. When ready to serve, heat the soup and stir in the cream. Heat until the soup is hot but not boiling.

*Buy plain pumpkin, not spiced pumpkin pie filling