Pumpkin recipes

The easiest way to use up the flesh you obtain from your carving pumpkin is to boil it with chicken or vegetable stock and a chopped fried onion to make a hearty and satisfying soup, but there’s no need to stop there.

Roasting the cubed flesh makes for a satisfying supper, as does filling pasta with the richly flavoured pulp. The sweeter varieties are perfect pie-fillers and most can be made into hearty soups. Warm spices have a particular affinity with pumpkin, particularly cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and herbs such as sage and rosemary.

In Argentina, meat is often cooked in hollowed-out pumpkins for a thick, hearty stew. New Zealanders regard the pumpkin as highly as the Irish regard the potato while in India, a popular variety called Kaddoo, or West Indian pumpkin, turns up in curries. In the Middle East, pumpkin is routinely stuffed with meat, rice and spices, and made into soups and preserves.

Pumpkin flesh is high in fibre and beta-carotene and the seeds are at least as nutritious. Full of zinc and essential fatty acids, these dark green slivers are great roasted with oil, seasoning and spices. In Mexico, ground pumpkin seeds, or pepitas, have been used for thousands of years as a way of thickening and flavouring dishes.

In Austria, a rare species of pumpkin, grown only in the Styria region, has skinless seeds that are made into pumpkin seed oil, renowned the world over for its sweet, nutty flavour. This dark green oil is particularly good in a vinaigrette made with cider vinegar, drizzled on salads and made into a pesto, using pumpkin seeds in place of the traditional pine nuts.

Pumpkin recipes

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