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Pumpkin The Neglected Vegetable
The fleshy vegetable has travelled a long way from being Cinderella�s carriage. It has gone past Thanksgiving pies and catapult throwing competitions as well as Thai dinner adornments and Jack-o�-Lanterns at Halloween. Chef Joy Bhattacharya of Hilton Towers shows how many different recipes you can devise with the poor pumpkin.
Pumpkin cheese cake
Composition:
Pumpkin cheese cake, pumpkin jelly , deco biscuit
Ingredients:
300 g pumpkin puree
250 g castor sugar
3 egg whites, 120 ml water
180 g Philadelphia cheese
8 gelatin leaves
1 vanilla bean
5 g thyme, 125 g cream
100 g flour, 20 g butter,
50 g icing sugar
3 egg yolks,red food colour, a few drops
Method:
Pumpkin jelly
Boil 100g pumpkin puree with 50 g castor sugar and thyme.
Add gelatin leaves soaked in ice water.
Set the jelly in a small ring mould.
Pumpkin cheese cake
Cream cheese and pumpkin puree with vanilla bean until light and fluffy.
Make Italian meringue with water, sugar and egg white.
Whip fresh cream, stiff.
Melt gelatin leaf.
Fold the cheese, meringue, cream and gelatin together to get cheese cake mix.
Deco biscuit
Whip egg yolk, sugar, till light and fluffy.
Fold in melted butter and flour to get the batter.
Spread the batter over a baking silicon sheet brushed with the colour.
Bake at 220 C for 4-5mins.
Assembly
Line the deco biscuit in the cake tin.
Fill in the pumpkin cheese cake in the tin.
Put the jelly in the center of the cake.
Set the cake in the fridge for 4-5 hrs , de-mould once set.
Garnish with chocolate stick, caramel sugar.
Young pumpkin soup (Garlic crostini and marjoram)
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
400 g peeled young pumpkin, peeled and diced
40 g carrots- finely chopped, 40 g onions - finely chopped
40 g celery - finely chopped, 40 g leeks - finely chopped
1000 ml stock of vegetables (to boil the garlic in)
Marjoram leaves - 2 tsp, finely chopped
50 ml olive oil, 4 g finely chopped parsley
4 long garlic crostinis
4 g salt, pepper, fresh and ground-to-taste
Method:
In a pan add 50 ml of olive oil and saute the onion, carrot celery and leeks till transparent. To this add the peeled and diced pumpkin, the salt and the Marjoram leaves and saut� till the pumpkin is caramelized to a golden brown colour and add the vegetable stock.
Bring the mix to a boil and simmer covered till the pumpkin is soft and mashed.
Blend this mixture and adjust the thickness if required with a bit of milk.
Pass through a strainer and keep hot.
To Serve
Divide the soup into four warmed soup bowls.
Garnish the soup with a drizzle of good quality olive oil and the chopped parsley and rest the crostini over the edge of the cup.
Candied pumpkin and cepe risotto
Wild arugula, pumpkin seed and grana padano cracknel
Serves: 4 portions
For the candied pumpkin:
Ingredients:
120 g pumpkin diced
30 ml olive oil
15 ml balsamic vinegar
1 tsp whole pepper corn
Salt to taste
Method:
Mix all the ingredients together and bake in a medium hot oven for 15 mins until the pumpkin turns crisp on the outside and fork- soft, inside.
For the grana padano cracknel, heat a non stick pan, sprinkle 60 g of grana padano cheese in any desired shape with no gaps.
Let the cheese melt, slow cook till the cheese browns evenly, Remove and cool.
Break into the desired shape.
For the risotto:
Ingredients:
280 g Arborio rice
60 g chopped shallots
40 ml olive oil, 100 ml white wine
600 ml stock, mildly seasoned
60 g Parmesan cheese
10 g toasted pumpkin seeds
4 small bunches Arugula lettuce, seasoning to taste
Method:
Saut� the shallots in oil, add the rice, fry for a while and then pour in the wine. When the wine is absorbed, add hot stock, a little at a time and keep stirring continuously.
When the rice is half done, add the roasted pumpkin and continue cooking. Finish with half the quantity of pumpkin seeds and check for seasoning.
To assemble, spoon the risotto on the plate, place the crisp arugula and garnish with grana padano cracknels.
KOLACHI BHAJI
Maharashtrian style red pumpkin preparation
Ingredients:
250 g red pumkin, salt to taste
3 g turmeric powder,
8 g chilli powder
100 g Bengal gram dal
� coconut grated, 5 g cumin seeds
3 g mustard seeds, 2 sprig curry leaves
75 ml coconut oil
Method:
Cook dices of red pumpkin with salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder and water.
Soak some Bengal gram dal and cook till done but not mashed.
Combine the dal with the vegetable.
Grind coconuts with cumin seeds to fine paste and set aside.
When the vegetables are cooked, add the ground coconut paste and mix thoroughly.
Add salt to taste. Make a tempering with mustard seeds, curry leaves and grated coconut. The coconut should be saut�ed to golden colour.
Add this to the vegetables and finish.
Pumpkin bread
Ingredients:
200 g pumpkin, 500 g refined flour
20 g sugar, 20 g salt
35 g yeast, 75 ml olive oil
5 g thyme, 15 g pumpkin seeds
Method:
Cut pumpkin in cubes and saut� in olive oil with thyme and salt.
Make a dough with flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar.
Rest the dough for 15 mins.
Mould the dough with the pumpkin seeds and saut� pumpkin.
Sprinkle some flour, and pumpkin seeds in a bread mould.
Place the bread dough in the mould.
Proove for 20 mins.
Demould carefully, the dough over a baking tray.
Bake at 200 C for 30 mins.
Sprinkle some olive oil over the bread as soon as it comes out of the oven.
Cool over a bread rack.
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