Pumpkin Tortellini Soup

I love the challenge of using ingredients that are typically used in sweet dishes and use them for savory. During the fall I cook up my fair share of pumpkins to use in all sorts of recipes. Most of the time they are going into sweet recipes, but I have been learning how to incorporate them into the savory. I was originally inspired to make a soup with them when I was browsing through some cookbooks at my local library. I came across an idea to wrap a pumpkin filling in wonton wrappers and serving it in a broth. I went to work on developing my own filling.

What I like about this soup is that it is easy to make and full of flavor. The filling is a little sweet from the pumpkin and creamy from the Parmesan. Then when you serve it a homemade chicken broth it makes it a complete well balanced soup. Perfect for a cooler, cozy autumn day.

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Pumpkin Tortellini Soup

Ingredients

• 8 oz pumpkin puree
• 3 tablespoons Panko Japanese breadcrumbs
• 1 large egg separated
• 1/4 cup hard cheese Parmesan, Romano, or Asiago cheese
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1-2 tablespoons fresh sage chopped
• 20-30 square wonton wrappers

Instructions

To make the filling

1. Start by mixing the pumpkin puree, cheese, Panko, nutmeg, salt, and pepper together in a medium sized bowl.
2. Then add in one egg yolk.
3. Make sure to save the white to use to seal up the wontons.

To make the chicken stock

1. I made the stock by placing the bones from a whole chicken I roasted, into my slow cooker when the chicken was done.
2. Then I filled it up with water, some salt and pepper, slightly broken up celery and carrots. I cooked the stock in the slow cooker all night long and later the next day, the bones were easy to break apart, so I had accomplished my goal.
3. I then placed the stock into my fridge to allow it to cool.
4. I remove the layer of fat that collected on the top and brought the stock up to a boil and boiled for 2 mintues before introducing the tortellini.

To fold the tortellini

1. Place 1 teaspoon of the filling in the center of each wonton (we used square ones).
2. Brush the egg wash on the top and right edge of the wonton and fold it in half on the diagonal.
3. Moisten one of the two diagonal points with egg wash and join the points together in the middle.
4. Then moisten the back of the top point and fold it backwards- opposite the first 2 points. What you will end up with looks something like an envelope. I made these in assembly line and it went rather quickly that way.

Final preparations

1. Bring your chicken stock to a boil. Then add the chopped sage.
2. Then introduce your tortellini. Cook until tender and the filling is heated through. This should take about 3-5 minutes.
3. Serve pipping hot with some freshly cracked black pepper on top.