“Orange watermelon” - as some call the pumpkin, which causes us a controversial reaction. Someone uses it because it really loves (in this regard, Americans have no equal), someone only because it is useful, well, and someone excludes it altogether from their diet, citing the refusal because of the tastelessness and delicacy of the vegetable. And in vain! There are many ways to enrich the pumpkin dish. For example, bake it in the oven. Why bake it? Yes, because it is perhaps the most successful way of cooking a useful “giant”.
Baked pumpkin in the oven - general principles and methods of cooking
Pumpkin - valuable in its composition and culinary properties of the product. Dishes baked in the oven, from this giant vegetable can be cooked a variety of: for example, bake the pulp with the addition of honey, very tasty and interesting pumpkin casseroles - sweet or salty, open pies and much more. However, in most cases they prefer to stuff the pumpkin, and then bake it in the oven with the filling.
Agree, an interesting dish turns out in the end. A tasty filling surrounded by an appetizing pumpkin “pot”, covered on top with an original lid, which later can also be eaten. The skin of the baked pumpkin is removed very easily, and the flesh, when baking, absorbs all the smells of the neighboring ingredients (or fillings), giving it an unusual taste and aroma.
Baked pumpkin in the oven - food preparation
So, as we have already found out, the pumpkin can be baked whole, without removing the skin and pulp around it, or in pieces, after clearing it from the peel and seeds. If pumpkin is young (its weight is up to 5-7 kilograms), then it is quite easily cleaned with the help of a kitchen knife or vegetable peeler. But if the vegetable is long or has a huge size - the skin becomes dense and tough. To remove such a "shell" from the pulp is almost impossible. In this case, the pumpkin is recommended to first hold in a heated oven until the flesh is soft, and then - remove the skin and act according to the recipe. How to be with stuffed pumpkin? And there is nothing difficult. In order for the vegetable to be properly prepared, it is necessary to cut off the upper part of the pumpkin (make a lid) or cut it in half lengthwise, remove the core with the seeds with a large spoon and stuff it with the prepared filling.
Baked pumpkin in the oven - the best recipes
Recipe 1: Cottage Cheese Casserole with Pumpkin in the Oven
Such a casserole will surely appeal to your growing child. As you know, cottage cheese is one of the most valuable foods, but few children like to use it in its purest form. Cottage cheese casserole in this case is the best option to enrich the growing body with necessary calcium. And the pumpkin filling will give a juicy dish. And tasty, and satisfying, and useful!
Ingredients:
- one kilogram of cottage cheese
- three chicken eggs
- Flour 4 table. spoons
- vanilla sugar 6 teaspoons
- some soda
- 300-400 gr. pumpkins
- 100 gr. Sahara
- a handful of breadcrumbs
- one yolk
Cooking Method:
1. Pound the cottage cheese through a sieve, carefully, so that not a single grain remains, add vanilla sugar, three eggs and soda. Stir. Pour the required amount of flour and start a thin cottage cheese dough.
2. To make the filling, pumpkin pulp is passed through a meat grinder and mixed with sugar. Next, lubricate the form of butter, the bottom evenly cover the breadcrumbs.
3. The curd mass is divided into two equal parts. The first part is distributed across the bottom of the form. Then lay out the stuffing from the pumpkin and close the remaining curd mass. Lubricate the casserole with whipped yolk.
4. Sent to a hot oven (up to 180C) and bake for twenty-twenty-five minutes. When the casserole is reddened, we take it out, cool it and serve it with fresh sour cream or whipped cream.
Recipe 2: Pumpkin Baked in Cheese Oven
Pumpkin with cheese is a rather interesting combination that you should definitely try. For juiciness, add cream to the dish, which will be poured directly into the cavity of the pumpkin, and ingredients such as pepper and nutmeg will add additional spicy flavor to the dish. Ingredients:
- medium sized pumpkin
- 500 gr. cheese (better than solid)
- one liter of heavy cream
- about 50 grams. butter
- to taste pepper, nutmeg
- salt and a little sugar (a small pinch to soften the taste)
Method of preparation:
1. From pumpkin we extract seeds, cutting off the cap from it. Rub cheese on a coarse grater and lay it in the cavity of the pumpkin. Fill in the same cream so that up to the top remains about five centimeters.
2. Mix the “stuffing” with sugar, salt, ground pepper, nutmeg, throw a couple of pieces of butter. Cover the pumpkin with a cut off lid.
3. Heat the oven (up to 170-190C), send the “stuffed” pumpkin there and bake for 60-80 minutes. After that, slightly cool and serve, scooping out the flesh in a place with creamy cheese contents, in deep plates.
Recipe 3: Baked pumpkin with rice, apples and nuts
Real homemade lunch! Dense, nourishing, rich, and most importantly - tasty and healthy. Rice for such a stuffed pumpkin is better to buy long-grain, so as not to boil soft. The pumpkin, naturally, must be whole, intact, since we will fill its halves with filling and bake.
Ingredients:
- one spoon (table) raisins
- two spoons of almond
- pumpkin weighing about 2 kg
- four medium apples
- tea l. cinnamon
- 150 gr. plums
- 150 gr. drain oils
- two table. lie Sahara
- three or four table. spoons of rice
- salt (pinch)
Method of preparation:
1. Boil rice until half cooked (it is very important not to cook it). We wash the raisins and pour them with uncool boiling water to swell the pulp. Pumpkin cut in half, without removing the skin. Remove from it the seeds and pulp, leaving the wall thickness of two centimeters.
2. Cut the flesh finely chopped, wash my plums, remove bones from them and also finely chop them. We clean the apples, remove the core with the seeds and chop into thin straws.
3. Chop the almonds with a knife and fry in a pan without adding vegetable oil. Fry, stirring, until golden brown. 4. Heat the oven (up to about 190C). Raise the raisins in a colander to make the glass moisture, after which all the cooked ingredients are mixed (chilled rice, plums, apples, pumpkin pulp, raisins, almonds, sugar, 100 g. Plum. Oil, cinnamon).
5. Pour the two pumpkin halves with the filling, put them on a greased baking sheet, send the dish to the oven for an hour and a half until the pumpkin and rice soften. Before serving, pour both halves with the remaining butter.
Recipe 4: Vegetable-meat stew in pumpkin
The original stew baked in a pumpkin cavity, which in addition to vegetables contains delicate white beans, as well as chicken meat, previously fried in a pan, retains all the beneficial properties of vegetables due to the fact that they will be in a confined space and baked in the oven.
Ingredients:
- one pumpkin
- Bulgarian pepper 2 pcs.
- five cloves of garlic
- pickled corn - 1 jar
- three spoons grows. oils
- two onions
- 200 gr. white marinated beans (in jars)
- 400 gr. potato
- 400 gr. tomatoes
- 500 gr. chicken fillet
- bunch of greens
- butter
- 200 gr. dried apricots
- a tablespoon of coriander
- spices (optional), salt
Method of preparation:
1. Cut the top off the pumpkin, remove all the seeds inside and lubricate the inside surface of the pumpkin with butter. Grease the baking sheet, put the pumpkin with a lid, send it to the oven for 1 hour.
2. Peel potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic (and peppers from seeds). Cut potatoes into large pieces, onions and peppers - half rings, garlic - finely. Scald tomatoes with boiling water and remove the peel from them. Shred greens.
3. In a dry pan, fry the coriander (over high heat for about 40 seconds), remove them in a bowl. Then fry the onion in the same pan, and then - sliced chicken fillet (if necessary, add a little water), stew until half cooked.
4. Next, add to the onions and chicken potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, dried apricots and beans, pour in a half liter of water and bring the vegetables to a boil, throw in garlic and cooled ground coriander. Stew vegetables for 20 minutes. Three minutes until cooked, add to the marinated corn stew. 5. After removing from heat, we put greens in the stew. We spread it in a pumpkin, cover with a lid and send to bake for half an hour. That's all! Enjoy your meal!
Pumpkin in the oven - tips from experienced chefs
- When buying a pumpkin, give preference to one that has a dense, unwrinkled, intact peel without foreign spots and looks heavier than its size;
- Winter pumpkin varieties are stored much longer than the summer. As a rule, they “love” cool dark places, but not a refrigerator, and can keep their structure for several weeks or even months;
- A pumpkin can also be reserved for the future, cleared it, cut into pieces and frozen in the freezer. Later, this raw material will certainly come in handy for culinary purposes;
- The pumpkin has a very mild, slightly pronounced taste, so it is ideally combined with ingredients that have a strong intense flavor (garlic, cheese, thyme, rosemary, thyme, as well as other spicy herbs and spices).
