Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup (Pumpkin Surinagashi)

Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup looks very similar to Western-style pumpkin soups or French pottage. But the soup-base is dashi stock, and the soup does not contain oil or dairy products.

It is a healthy and low-calorie soup, and it’s so quick to make.  You can taste a combination of natural pumpkin flavour and savoury dashi stock. It can be served hot or cold.

About Surinagashi

Today’s dish is called ‘kabocha no surinagashi’ (かぼちゃのすり流し) in Japanese. ‘Kabocha’ (かぼちゃ or 南瓜) means pumpkin.

‘Surinagashi’ (すり流し), which is also called ‘surinagashi-jiru’ (すり流し汁), is a soup made by mixing dashi stock and the puréed main ingredient or ingredients (often this is just one ingredient).

If you use a different vegetable such as turnip, the name of the dish becomes ‘kabu no surinagashi’ (蕪のすり流し), where ‘kabu’ (蕪) means turnip. The word ‘no’ (の) is equivalent to ‘of’ in this context.

The soup made using this cooking method ‘surinagashi’ is a very traditional Japanese dish. The ingredients can be almost any vegetables that can be puréed, tofu, and even fish.

The flavouring can be as simple as only dashi stock or dashi stock with a small amount of soy sauce/salt/miso.

In the past, puréeing the main ingredients was a labourious task. After boiling the ingredients, you needed to grind them using a mortar and pestle, then put them through a sieve little by little to make the ingredients smooth. Hence, Surnagashi was considered to be a sumptuous food.

But now you can use a blender to do the job so fast and with so little effort that everyone can have Surinagashi. Traditional Japanese chefs, however, still use a very fine sieve to finish the purée because it makes the Surinagashi much smoother.

What’s in my Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup (Pumpkin Surinagashi)

The flavour of today’s Surinagashi is made up of dashi, soy sauce, mirin and salt.

• Pumpkin cut into cubes
• Dashi stock
• Shiro shōyu (white soy sauce) or usukuchi syōyu (light soy sauce)
• Mirin
• Salt
• Chopped chives for garnish

I would strongly recommend using a good dashi stock, freshly made awase dashi with konbu and bonito flakes. If you only have granular instant dashi powder, use slightly more powder than recommended.

I used shiro shōyu to preserve the vivid orange colour of the pumpkin purée, but it’s ok to use normal soy sauce instead.

You don’t have to have a garnish, but it gives the plain soup an accent as well as a different texture. Instead of chives, you can use thinly sliced green beans or okra. You could also have a few strips of blanched pumpkin skin.

A mug of chilled Pumpkin Surinagashi with sliced blanched okra as a garnish. Doesn’t it look pretty?

How to make Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup (Pumpkin Surinagashi)

The process is extremely straight forward.

1. Put the pumpkin pieces and dashi stock in a saucepan and cook until the pumpkins is tender.
2. Transfer the pumpkin and stock to a blender and purée.
3. Transfer the purée back to the pan, then add soy sauce, mirin and some salt.
4. Bring it to a boil and taste test. Adjust with salt and turn the heat off.
5. If serving hot, pour the soup into a serving bowl and place several chives in the centre.
6. If serving cold, chill the soup in the fridge, then serve in the same way.

An alternate method of cooking the pumpkin pieces is to steam them using a steamer or a microwave. Then combine the steamed pumpkin with dashi stock, and purée.

I used a blender, so I had to transfer the cooked pumpkin to the blender, then back to the saucepan to bring it to a boil. If you use a stick blender, you can purée it in the pan, which is less work and less washing.

I tried the hot version and the chilled version of Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup (Pumpkin Surinagashi). Both were delicious. It is also an excellent weaning food for babies and a nursing care food.

Although awase dashi is the best for today’s soup, you can substitute it with konbu dashi or shiitake dashi if you are a vegetarian.

Yumiko

5 from 1 vote

Print

Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup (Pumpkin Surinagashi)

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

10 mins

Total Time

15 mins

 

Japanese-style Pumpkin Soup looks very similar to Western-style pumpkin soups or French pottage. But the soup-base is dashi stock, and the soup does not contain oil or dairy products.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Soup

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: cold soup, japanese soup, pumpkin recipe, pumpkin soup, vegetarian soup

Serves: 2

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 300g/0.7lb pumpkin , deseeded, skin removed (note 1)
• 400ml/0.8pt dashi stock (note 2)
• 1 tsp shiro shōyu or usukuchi shōyu (note 3)
• 1 tsp mirin
• 1/3 tsp salt (note 4)

Garnish

• Chopped chives (note 5)

Instructions

1. Cut the pumpkin into 2-2.5cm/1” cubes.

2. Put the pumpkin pieces and dashi stock in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.

3. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 7-8 minutes with a lid on, or until the pumpkin is cooked through (if a bamboo skewer can get through easily, it is done).

4. Turn the heat off and let it cool slightly.

5. Transfer the pumpkin with dashi to a blender. Purée until there are no pumpkin bits left and the liquid is smooth, then transfer the purée back to the saucepan (note 6).

6. Add soy sauce, cooking sake, and half of the salt to the purée and bring it to a boil (note 7).

7. Taste-test, add some more salt if required, and mix. Turn the heat off.

8. If you are serving it cold, chill it in the fridge after it is sufficiently cooled down.
9. Serve hot or cold in a serving bowl garnished with chopped chives in the centre.

Recipe Notes

1. I used Kent pumpkin which is also called J.A.P. (apparently abbreviated from Just Another Pumpkin, nothing to do with Japan) pumpkin, but you can of course use other species of pumpkin.

2. If possible, make dashi stock from scratch per my recipe Home-style Japanese Dashi Stock. It gives a better flavour to the soup.

Use konbu dashi or shiitake dashi to make it vegetarian.

3. I used shiro shōyu to preserve the vivid orange colour of the pumpkin purée. Usukuchi shōyu is also lighter than normal soy sauce. If you don’t have those, you can use normal soy sauce.

4. The amount of salt required depends on the final quantity of the soup as well as the type of soy sauce you use. Normal soy sauce is less salty than shiro shōyu and usukuchi shōyu.

5. Instead of chives, you can use chopped green onions, strips of blanched pumpkin skin, okra slices, etc. The green colour stands out in the orange-yellow purée.

6. If you are using a stick blender, you can purée the pumpkin in the saucepan. It means less washing!

7. The consistency of the soup is similar to Western-style pumpkin soup - not too thick, not too watery.

8. Nutrition per serving.

serving: 353g calories: 78kcal fat: 1.8g (3%) saturated fat: 0.5g (2%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 0.3g monounsaturated fat: 0.5g cholesterol: 2mg (1%) sodium: 838mg (35%) potassium: 806mg (23%) carbohydrates: 11g (4%) dietary fibre: 0.8g (3%) sugar: 5.2g protein: 6.2g vitamin a: 256% vitamin c: 23% calcium: 3% iron: 7%