Pumpkins
Use what you scrape out during carving to make these delicious recipes:
Curried pumpkin soup
(recipe credit: Seema Pankhania)
Ingredients
- 1kg/2lb 4oz pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed and flesh cut into 7cm/2¾in chunks
- 3–4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt (plus extra if desired)
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 3 tomatoes, cut into quarters
- 6–8 garlic cloves, flattened and peeled
- 400ml tin coconut milk
- freshly ground black pepper
For the tarka
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp black mustard seeds
- 4–6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1–3 green jalapeño chillies, thinly sliced
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Rub the pumpkin with the oil and sprinkle with the salt, chilli powder, ground coriander and ground cumin.
- Add to a large roasting tin along with the onion, tomatoes and garlic. Roast for 1-1½ hours, turning every 30 minutes to make sure everything is soft and caramelised (pumpkins vary hugely in how long they need to be cooked for, the more water they contain the longer they will take).
- Once the vegetables are tender, tip everything from the roasting tin into a food processor and blend with the coconut milk until smooth. Pour into a large saucepan or casserole and keep warm. Season with salt and pepper. Add a splash of water if needed to thin the soup.
- To make the tarka, heat the oil in the smallest saucepan you have and add the cumin seeds. Once they start to pop, add the black mustard seeds, garlic and chillies. Cook for 1 minute until the garlic is just lightly browned then take off the heat. Immediately spoon the tarka over the soup and cover with a lid. Leave for 5 minutes before mixing the tarka into the soup and serving.
Vegan pumpkin loaf cake
(recipe credit: Sanjana Modha)
Ingredients
- 220ml/8fl oz unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
- 125ml/4fl oz neutral oil (like sunflower), plus extra for greasing
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200g/7oz pumpkin purée* (see recipe tip)
- 350g/12oz self raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 165g/5¾oz caster sugar
- 1¼ tsp ground mixed spice or chai spice
- 1/8 tsp fine salt
For the icing
- 150g/5½oz icing sugar
- 1½ tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp unsweetened almond milk
Method
- To make the cake, grease and line a 25x16cm/10×6¼in loaf tin with baking paper. (This is roughly a 1.8kg/4lb loaf tin.)
- Stir together the almond milk and vinegar in a jug. Leave to stand for 10 minutes until slightly curdled. Whisk in the oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract and pumpkin purée.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, mixed spice and salt into a large bowl. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and beat with a balloon whisk for 30–40 seconds, or until completely smooth. Do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into the loaf tin and knock the tin on the worktop several times to remove any air bubbles. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50–55 minutes. Do not open the oven for the first 50 minutes or the cake may deflate. To test if the cake is cooked, insert a cocktail stick into the centre. It should come out clean with just a few moist crumbs attached. If there is still wet batter on the stick, bake for a little longer.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool fully on a wire rack.
- To make the icing, mix the icing sugar, maple syrup and milk in a bowl. Pour the icing over the top of the cooled cake and leave to set for 1–2 hours at room temperature. Cut the cake into slices and serve.
*Recipe tip
If you have fresh pumpkin to use up then you can make your own purée instead of buying tinned. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4, halve the pumpkin and scrape out the seeds and stringy bits with a spoon. Place the pumpkin halves, cut side down, onto a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes, until it feels soft to the touch. When cool enough to handle, scrape out the cooked flesh and mash with a fork until smooth. Set aside to cool completely, then use the same as the tinned purée.
Roasted pumpkin seeds
(recipe credit: Elise Bauer)
Ingredients
- 1 medium pumpkin
- Salt*
- Extra virgin olive oil
*Recipe tip
You could also sprinkle with spices such as smoked paprika, cumin, or chilli powder before they go into the oven.
Method
- Cut open the pumpkin and scrape out the flesh along with the seeds.
- Separate the bulk of the flesh from the seeds (making one of the delicious recipes above) and place the mass of pumpkin seeds in a colander over a pan. Rinse away the stringy bits (these can be composted or binned) until you are left with just the seeds.
- This next step is how you get the saltiness into the seeds (you can just coat the seeds in salt before you bake if you want to skip this part). Measure the pumpkin seeds in a cup measure. Place the seeds in a medium saucepan. Add 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt to the pan for every 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds. Add more salt if you would like your seeds to be saltier.
- Bring the salted water and seeds to the boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat the bottom of a roasting pan or thick baking sheet with olive oil, about a teaspoon or so.
- Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan in a single layer, and toss them a bit to coat them with the oil on the pan.
- Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the seeds. Small pumpkin seeds may toast in around 5 minutes or so, large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the pumpkin seeds so they don’t get over toasted.
- When lightly browned, remove the pan from the oven and let cool on a rack. Let the pumpkin seeds cool all the way down before eating.
