Primetime Thursday Night Football last week clearly called for a Football Food dinner. So, we decided to do a fusion type dish between Buffalo and New England to blend some of the culinary traditions/flavours of each. We started by relying on our Maple Buffalo Pulled Turkey recipe from a prior encounter with the same opponent, and from that, we landed on combining the vinegary heat of Buffalo Sauce with the sweetness of Maple Syrup.
Then, a cursory look in our vegetable drawer showed that we still had half of the pumpkin we used for our Roasted Garlic and Pumpkin Soup…and we hadn’t made a Pumpkin Chili in a while, so we decided to go that route. Lastly, we had to decide on what beans to include, as we didn’t want ones that would overpower any of our flavours. So, we thought long and hard and remembered the time when we made Buffalo White Bean Soup…and since those beans are so mild, we decided to use them again!
We served our soup with a side of tortilla chips to scoop, and the little bit of saltiness they added worked very well with all of the chili ingredients. Enjoy, and Go Bills!
Time: 1-2 Hours (depending on your choice of fresh vs canned pumpkin)
Ingredients:
- Pumpkin. We used fresh, but canned may be easier to find outside of season, and it would reduce your cook time by about an hour.
- Ground Chicken
- Celery
- Red Onion
- White Beans
- Canned Tomatoes
- A lot of Buffalo Sauce
- A little Maple Syrup
- Crumbled Blue Cheese
Method:
- If using fresh pumpkin, Break Down your Pumpkin, cut off the skin, chop the pumpkin flesh into chunks, and boil until soft. Then, drain the water, and mash your pumpkin.
- Dice your Celery and Onions. Then, melt some butter in a pan, and sautee until the celery softens and loses some of its colour, and the onions become opaque.
- Add your ground chicken to the celery/onion pan, and break it up as it cooks. Cook until your chicken is fully browned, and the liquids in the pan cook off.
- While your chicken cooks, combine your canned tomatoes and mashed (or canned/pureed) pumpkin in a soup pot.
- Drain your white beans, rinse them, and add them to your tomatoes/pumpkin.
- When your chicken/celery/onions are done, pour them into your pumpkin mixture, and stir to combine.
- Add in your Buffalo Sauce and Maple Syrup to taste. We find that you need a lot of Buffalo but not a lot of Maple for our preferred flavour profile.
- Simmer for 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent your beans from burning.
- Scoop into bowls, crumble some blue cheese on top, devour, and enjoy!
