Pumpkin quiche

We had some pumpkins from a friend. And I was planning to cook them over the long weekend we had. I love pumpkin, but savory dishes. I do not have much liking for sweets. I would love to make pumpkin pies someday, to cook something new, but I know for sure that there will be no one to eat it. Therefore, it had to be a savory pumpkin weekend. And this time I wished to try something new other than my favorite Bengali preparations. I always find quiche interesting, a nice way to try incorporating new ideas. So this lovely pumpkin quiche was on the first preparation to be on the menu. And it turned out so deliciously good!

You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE 

INGREDIENTS:
(Serves 4)

500g of pumpkin or squash

2 large onions

8 sheets of phyllo dough

3 eggs

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup milk

1 cup diced smoked cheese

1 stem of rosemary

1 stem of lavender

1/4 cup sage leaves

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

METHOD:

1.   Cut the pumpkin into bite size cubes. Toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add a stem of rosemary, lavender and few sage leaves.

2.   Roast pumpkin in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 30 minutes and set aside.

3.   In the mean time, slice onion.

4.   Heat oil in a pan and sauté the onion until tender.

5.   Add 1/4 cup water. Reduce the heat and cook covered until golden brown with occasional stirring (around 40 minutes) (caramelize). Add little bit of water if it tends to get dry.

6.   Line a 26cm pie dish / spring-form pan with the phyllo sheets. Brush each sheet with oil and layer them on top of each other. Let the ends hang from the sides.

7.   Lightly beat the eggs. Add in onion, pumpkin, 2/3 of the cheese, sour cream, milk, salt, pepper, remaining of the sage leaves finely chopped. Gently mix.

8.   Pour the mixture in the pie dish. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

9.   Gently fold the hanging phyllo edges on the side.

10. Bake at 200°C for 40 minutes or until set.

11. Let it stand for 5 minutes more before serving.

Stuffed pumpkin

I had this nice round small pumpkin (kabocha squash I think, not particularly sure). Recently I was going through these recipes of stuffing. Therefore bringing both together to make a stuffed pumpkin was the next idea. I have also taken a fancy on celery recently. Though the flavor is a bit too strong for me, I like it a lot when used in minimum to give a hint of subtle aromatic flavor. And since winter is almost here, the sausage had to form a part of the dish too. I am sure to cook it again in future during the pumpkin season. In the meantime I will be use the stuffing to stuff other things or incorporate in some different way in my food.

 

You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 4)

1 small round pumpkin (~1.5kg)

1 small onion

1 large carrot

1 red bell pepper

2 green apples

2-3 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 cured pork sausage (in pair)

1/4sp celery seeds

1/4sp fennel seeds

1/2 cup chopped parsley

2tbsp chopped sage

Salt

Pepper

Oilve Oil

METHOD:

1.     Cut open the lid off the pumpkin. Clean the inside of strings and seeds. Brush with oil, salt, pepper.

2.     Bake the pumpkin in preheated oven at 180°C for 20 mins. Set aside.

3.     In meantime, dice the carrot, peppr, apples, onion. Crush the garlic cloves.

4.     Remove the casing of the sausage and gently crush it.

5.     In a skillet, heat oil.

6.     Add the onion and sauté a couple of minutes.

7.     Add the remaining vegetables, celery and fennel seeds. Season with salt. Add 1tbsp of sage and 1/2 of the parsley.

8.     Cook on low heat for 5 minutes, stirring often.

9.     Add the sausage meat. Break with the wooden spoon and cook until no longer pink.

10.  Lightly whisk the egg in a bowl with the milk. Add the vegetable-sausage mixture. Add the remaining parsley and sage. Make everything into a moist mixture.

11.  Fill the pumpkin with stuffing.

12.  Bake it at 200°C for 20-25 minutes, until the egg is cooked and the stuffing has risen a bit.

13.  Stand for 5 minutes, and serve with the lid on top.

Kumro bhate (boiled pumpkin)

Bhate, meaning ‘in rice’, is what we call any vegetables boiled in the pot of cooking rice. In Bengal, we have all sorts of bhate. Potato, pumpkin, okra, different gourds, everything could be a bhate. Instead of boiling the vegetables separately, mothers, grandmothers would put inside some vegetables in same pot while cooking rice. They did know how to save energy! Then when it is done, keep the rice aside. While, mashing the vegetables with a bit of mustard oil, salt, and green chili would make the quickest and tasty side dish ever.  It had been long that I have had a bhate. Therefore, I decided to use a bit of the pumpkin that was left from the 6kg one in the garden for a bhate. I was cooking pumpkin in all sorts of Bengali styles, so why not a boiled pumpkin dish. The day before, I had made ghee (clarified butter), and saved the milk solids. I love using it with rice. I had to cook the aromatic gobindobhog rice, a small grain sticky variety of aromatic rice. Wow, how delicious it was! The mellow sweetness of pumpkin spiced up with the heat of the chili was heavenly to eat with the fragrant rice and the subtle hint of fat.

  You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 2)

200g pumpkin

1sp mustard oil

1 green chili thinly sliced

Salt

Sugar

METHOD:

1.      Leave the pumpkin as large pieces. Put it in boiling water along with rice grains while cooking rice.

2.      After rice is done, take out the pumpkin pieces and let it cool a bit.

3.      Mash well with green chili, mustard oil, salt and a pinch of sugar.

NOTE:

Any vegetable can be used instead of pumpkin.

The vegetable can be boiled on its own instead of doing it with the rice.

Though the taste from mustard oil cannot be replaced, in case of unavailability, olive oil or butter or anything similar can be used.

Kumror chakka (pumpkin with potatoes and chickpeas)

Chakka is a cube or dice. And the name of this simple potato pumpkin dish comes from the shape in which the vegetables are cut. Little cubes. How a vegetable is cut, is not only important for asthetic reason, but also for the way it is cooked. And all Bengali recipes have exact instruction of about the shapes of the cut vegetables. In this case, it is small cubes similar to the size of dices. This is the dish that started all the pumpkin tales last year. I had cooked it once for Blaž’s family. They loved it so much, that I had to cook a few more times in the next weeks. And the result, the big pumpkin growing in the garden this year. I love this dish. There is hint of sweetness, hint of spice, it is tender, and there is a bite.  And it uses the bhaja masala, a toasted-and-ground spice mixture that can make any dish my favorite.

  You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 4)

750g pumpkin

3 large potatoes

1/2cup red Bengal gram (soaked overnight)

1.5tbsp ginger paste

1 pinch freshly ground asafoetida/asafetida

1 green chili

1sp whole cumin seed

1 pinch turmeric powder

Salt

Sugar

Oil

Spice mixture:

1sp whole cumin seed

1/2sp fennel seed

1/2sp mustard seed

1/4sp nigella seed

1/2 dried red chili

METHOD:

1.      Cut the pumpkin and potatoes in small cubes (the size of dice).

2.      Heat oil in pan. Add whole cumin seeds and let it crackle.

3.      Add the asafoetida. When it leaves fragrance, add the ginger paste. Cook for a minute on medium heat.

4.      Add the diced potatoes, salt and turmeric powder. Cook for a couple of minutes on medium heat with frequent stirring. Make sure that the potatoes are not getting brown.

5.      Add the pumpkin cubes, soaked Bengal grams, chili. Stir well. Cook covered on low-medium heat with occasional stirring. Do not stir too much, otherwise the vegetables will mash.

6.      In the meantime, toast the whole spices for the spice mixture and then grind well.

7.      When almost done, remove the cover, and increase the heat. Add a pinch of sugar and cook for a few more minutes.

8.      Garnish with the toasted-and-ground spice mixture (bhaja masala).

NOTE:

If not used to hotness from the chili, one can omit the green chili. The dried red chili however gives the flavor and aroma, and should not be omitted. Use only a smaller amount if necessary.

Chingri kumro (Pumpkin with shrimps)

In Bengal we love eating fishes and shrimps, and use them in all possible preparations. Kucho chingri or tiny shrimps can give such a delicious flavor in any vegetable preparation, and is used often. So, for my pumpkin series in Bengali style, I of course had to cook it with tiny shrimps. It is cooked similar to Kumro boti, with only shrimps instead of garlic. Blaž loved it. And his grandma said, if pumpkin tastes so good, she can eat a lot more of the vegetable!

 You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 4)

1kg pumpkin

2 big onions

200g shrimp

1 green chili

Turmeric

Chili powder

Salt

Sugar

Oil

METHOD:

1.        Cut the pumpkin into thin sticks. Chop the onions.

2.        Heat oil in a wok (around 3tbsp, a bit more than usually needed).

3.        Add the shrimps, salt and chili powder. Fry until golden. Remove from oil and keep aside.

4.        In the same oil, add chopped onion. Cook on medium heat until onion starts getting golden.

5.        Add the pumpkin. Add green chili, chili powder to taste (tastes better if hot), a pinch of turmeric. Cook covered on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally.

6.        When pumpkin is almost done, remove cover and the fried shrimps. Cook on high heat for a few more minutes, until pumpkin is well done. It must be semi-dry with no gravy.

Kumro boti (Pumpkin with garlic - a semi-dry preparation)

There was a huge pumpkin in the garden weighing 6kg. And I was happily eating pumpkin the whole last week. For lunch and for dinner. And was I happy? I couldn’t be happier eating pumpkin. I cooked it in different classic Bengali preparations. I would keep a bit for taking as lunch to work the next day. And then, just one spoon more I would tell myself. I just couldn’t resist eating it. So the first recipe from my pumpkin cooking week. Kumro boti. Pumpkin cooked on low heat in a covered wok. This recipe requires a bit more oil than one would usually use. And there is flavored mainly with garlic. One of my favorite pumpkin dish.

You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 4)

1kg pimpkin

2big onions

2tbsp minced garlic

1green chilli

Turmeric

Chili powder

Salt

Sugar

Oil

METHOD:

1.      Cut the pumpkin into thin sticks. Chop the onions.

2.      Heat oil in a wok (around 3tbsp, a bit more than usually needed).

3.      Add chopped onion and minced garlic. Cook on medium heat until onion starts getting golden.

4.      Add the pumpkin. Add green chili, chili powder to taste (tastes better if hot), a pinch of turmeric. Cook covered on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally.

5.      When pumpkin is almost done, remove cover and cook until done on high heat. It must be semi-dry with no gravy.