A lot of my early life in professional kitchens was spent making vegetable purees, which I find rather tiresome, not least because they can often lapse into baby food: creamy, bland and flattened by a cosseting blanket of dairy. With a judicious and considered approach, however, they can also be incredibly vivid, explosive and concentrated expressions of the very essence of the vegetable in question. I love this seasonal (not to mention Halloween-appropriate) soup for its simplicity of approach – essentially, you just roast a beautiful pumpkin with caramelised butter – and the remarkable complexity of its result.
