This is my suggestion for All Saints’ Day or Halloween dinner. I know that the Americans and many Europeans have already had their Halloween. Here in Finland it is tomorrow on November 2nd this year and the eve of All Saints’ Day. I test cooked my dinner already last weekend. I had never cooked this type of lamb and it had been ages since I made pumpkin soup. It all turned very delicious.
I adapted the soup recipe from the September – October ELLE mat och vin (added more pumpkin) and Sikke Sumari’s recipe for lamb shanks from Gloria some years ago (the recipe is almost as Sikke’s, a famous Finnish TV cook, cook book author, restaurateur and cook competition judge (Finnish master chef).
Pumpkin soup (6 portions as starters, 4 as lunch)
1 kg of pumpkin, peeled and diced
half a litre of chicken stock
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3 dl double cream
2 tbsp corn starch
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper
1 Peel and dice the pumpkin. Boil the water and mix in chicken stock fond or bouillon cube.
2 Cook until the pumpkin is soft. Mix with kitchen aid until smooth.
3 Make a cream sauce while the pumpkin is cooking. Melt the butter, mix in the corn starch and pour in the cream little by little.
Let the sauce come to boil turning it all the time. The sauce is ready once it thickens. Season with salt and pepper and set away from the stove.
4 Mix the cream sauce into the pumpkin soup by hand. Warm up and serve.
This is a delicious but quite a heavy soup. Serve small portions as starters.
I served the soup with slices of rye bread with sautéed funnel chanterelles.
Lamb Shanks (for three)
3 lamb shanks
butter
1 carrot
1 leek
2 cloves of garlic
0,5 l beef stock
0,5 red wine
Handful of thyme, rosemary and oregano
Salt and black pepper
1 Brown the lamb in butter. Put them into an oven pot.
2 Peel and slice the vegetables. Clean the leek carefully unless you want sand in your teeth.
3 Saute the leek, carrot and garlic in the pan. Add the herbs, beef stock and wine. Let come to boil and pour over the lamb.
4 Cook in the oven and cook for three hours in 175 C. Turn the les every now and then.
Serve with potato mash.
lippewallenius 