gaumenperlen

Two of the million ways to cook a pumpkin

Another one of my favourite vegetables are pumpkins. So if you do not want to read my hymn for the pumpkin, I recommend strongly other articles of my blog. :-) One of the main reasons why I love pumpkins so much is that they possess a slight own very fine sweet taste and with this taste and their special texture they are able to absorb a whole amount of additional aroma: of the herbs you add, of the salt you put on them, of the side dishes you serve with them. Pumpkins are like a warm, well heated ground floor for a lot of dishes in autumn.

There are two kinds of pumpkins I prefer: the orange pumpkin we call "hokaido" and the butternut pumpkin. A huge variety of other fantastic pumpkins has to be left out here. The best way ever to get close to their own characteristics is to experiment with them. My following recipes are built for the hokaido, the most common one of the eatable pumpkins here.

Pumpkin Capellini with celery 

I developed a very nice pumpkin pasta recipe for one of my last dinner guests. I love to have Capellini with it, the very very thing Spaghetti, of you get them buy organic fresh ones for that dish or make them on your own. Capellini go very well with light sauces and that´s why i choose them this time.

What you need for the gaumenperlen
pumpkin sauce How to cook it

1 very small orange hokaido

3 very little onions, better shallots

1 fresh celery stalk

Homemade garlic salt

1 glass of white wine

Peel of a half lime

Knife point of homemade chili flakes

crushed black pepper

Creme fraîche

How to cook it

Peel the shallots and cut them into very, very fine slices. Wash the celery stalk put the leaves of and cit the stalk also into very fine slices and the leaves into bigger slices.

Wash the pumpkin, cut it and put the inner pits and stuff away. According to the size of your hokaido and the guests on your table use it half or completely.

Cut the pumpkin into small pieces.

Put enough oil into a pan and give medium heat to it. Fry the shallots until they become lucent. Add the pumpkin, the celery stalk pieces and half of the cut leaves, all the spices, the lemon peel and steam it fry it for 10 minutes stirring it permanently. Deglaze it with the glass of wine, if necessary add another one. Put the lid on. After 10 up to 15 further minutes it should be ready.

Open the lid, add the creme fraîche and taste if there is some more salt necessary. Mix the cooked Capellini with the sauce and serve it immediately.

Oven pumpkin with 

cashews and thyme

Another fine and easy recipe is the gaumenperlen oven pumpkin with fresh thyme and cashews. Here as well the homemade garlic salt is used to enhance the taste without adding an overlay of garlic to the dish.

What you need 

1 small orange hokaido
Homemade garlic salt
100 grams of cashews 
Bunch of fresh thyme
Black pepper
Good organic oil to fry things
Baking paper
A dash of fresh lime juice

How to cook it

Wash the pumpkin, cut it and put the inner pits and stuff away. According to the size of your hokaido and the guests on your table use it half or completely.
Cut the pumpkin into long slices of 2 cm. 
Put baking paper on your baking tray. Lay all the pumpkin slices down. Pour enough oil over each slice. Add salt, pepper and the cashews over the pumpkin slices. In the end add a lot of fresh thyme leaves over it and bake it for 25 minutes (depending on the thickness of your slices) in the hot oven until it gets a bit crispy and the cashews are not too brown.
After your tray has left die oven, take a lime half and add a dash of lime juice over every slice of pumpkin. The acid rounds up the sweetness of the pumpkin. Serve it hot with a nice glass of white wine which covers well the thyme aromas.
Enjoy your meal!

dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds