A pumpkin is not just for Halloween. But in the UK you'd think they were, judging by our usual unimaginative approach to cooking with them. First introduced to the art of pumpkin carving many years ago by American relatives, I witnessed at first hand the associated activity of ensuring that the freshly extracted flesh was put to the best possible use in the kitchen. Steaming, traditional sweet pumpkin pies and textured pumpkin bread were whipped up after the pumpkins had been brutalised with ghoulish faces to be lit and put out on the front porch.
Back in Blighty my mother and I would make vats of homemade soup – which became a family favourite - from the flesh of our own eviscerated fruit. Nowadays pumpkin carving is well established in the UK, with Halloween deemed to be our third most popular 'festival' after Christmas and Easter, and every year I challenge myself to come up with new recipes (there are three favourites from Nigella, Jamie and Keith Abel in today's G2).
Record sales of pumpkins are predicted this year as a result of favourable weather conditions. The dry summer followed by autumn rain has not only produced a bumper crop, but each pumpkin is bigger than usual too, weighing in at an average 5kg.
Inevitably there are tips a-plenty on US websites, with some recommending (puzzlingly) that you don't eat the flesh of a carved pumpkin. It is edible of course (though best to avoid the stringy tendrils). The trick is to cook and eat it as quickly as possible after extracting it, and before it gets a bit whiffy.
It can be fiddly cleaning out a pumpkin, but the best way is to ease round the flesh at the sides with a sharp knife (as if you were preparing a grapefruit) and then remove the flesh with a large spoon or an ice-cream scoop.
That's the bit that the kids can do safely without risking a visit to A&E. Get rid of the stringy bits and cut the flesh into chunks. Keep the seeds, as they can be toasted to make a snack or used in other recipes.
You can use pumpkin wherever squash is specified in any recipe such as risottos and vegetable stews. A friend makes a delicious 'cocktail' using pumpkin puree. And you can't beat a basic soup using stock, onions, potatoes and as much pumpkin as you can muster, enhanced with a dash of cream or milk and a sprinkle of nutmeg.
What are your favourite recipes for using these golden globes? Sweet or savoury? Or if you think pumpkin flesh is massively overrated, should we just concentrate on honing our carving skills?
