- Squash or pumpkin seeds and scrapings
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 celery stalk, plus some leaves, chopped into small pieces
- 1 turnip, peeled and diced
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon dried sage leaves or 5 to 6 fresh sage leaves
- 4 parsley branches
- 3 thyme branches
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 cups cold water
- 1 pumpkin or squash, weighing about 2½ pounds, halved and scooped out
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 medium yellow onion, cut into ¼-inch dice
- ½ to 1 teaspoon salt
- 6 to 7 cups stock
- ½ to 1 cup light cream
- White pepper
- 3 ounces Gruyere cheese, finely grated
- Thyme leaves, finely chopped, for garnish
- Cut the pumpkin or squash in half and scrape out all the seeds and stringy material with a large metal spoon. Put them in a pot with the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, simmer for 25 minutes, and then strain.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake the pumpkin or squash halves, face down, on a lightly oiled baking sheet until the skin is wrinkled and the flesh is soft, about 1 hour. Remove them from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, peel off the skin. Reserve any caramelized juices that may have collected on the pan.
- Melt the butter in a soup pot, add the onion, and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the cooked pumpkin, the juices, if any, the salt, and 6 cups of the stock. Bring to a boil; then simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.
- Pass the soup through a food mill, which will smooth it out while leaving some texture. Return the soup to the pot and add the cream and more stock, if necessary, to thin it.
- Taste for salt and season with the freshly ground white pepper. Stir in the grated cheese and serve the soup with the thyme leaves scattered over it.
- Variation: Another way to make this soup is to bake pumpkins with the cream and the cheese inside their hollowed-out shells. The cooked flesh is scraped into the hot cream and melted cheese and served right from the pumpkin–a satisfying and fun way to cook and eat.