In a heavy bottom pot heat the oil

Add pumpkin and onion and saute for a few minutes

Add enough hot water to just cover the pumpkin, less if the pumpkin is watery

Add chicken stock

Bring to boil, then simmer with lid on till pumpkin is soft. Turn heat off.

Add coconut cream, fish sauce, lime juice, rice wine vinegar, sugar, and chili sauce.

Blend in food processor or with blender stick

Adjust flavors

Tips: This soup has sweet, sour, salty, hot, and umami (meaty) flavors, as do the taste buds on our tongue. To get a dish to sing in your mouth you need to balance these flavors. Taste the soup then decide – if it needs to be: • Saltier: add more fish sauce and/or chicken stock (just a small amount at a time) • Sweeter: more sugar • More sour: lime juice and rice wine vinegar • Umami (meaty): fish sauce and/or chicken stock • Hotter: add tiny amounts of chili – remember the heat from chili does increase a little when heating a dish Keep adding these flavors. I find I usually have to use all of them in varying amounts, one at a time until it works. Whenever possible, make the soup in advance so the flavors can meld (join together) and improve. Then reheat just before serving and keep adjusting. Over time this adjusting will become just a part of the way you cook, as it probably already is. Soup can be made the day before.