If you want to experience cooking like the pilgrims then this recipe is perfect. The Pumpkin is not only tasty, but it makes a great cooking vessel for a stew.
Ingredients:
1- 3.5 lb Pumpkin
12 oz Chicken Breast or Chicken Thigh meat
1 large Carrot
1 rib Celery
1 small Onion
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 teaspoon Paprika
Salt
Pepper
2 cups Chicken Stock
Slurry: (optional)
1/4 cup
1/2 cup AP flour
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This was so much fun to do.
I used a smaller 3.5 lb pumpkin is perfect for 2 people.
Cut the top off as usual if you were going to carve it.
Remove the seeds. Don't throw them away, wash and toast in an oven for a real treat.
Chop the vegetables in a medium dice
Cut the chicken breast into cubes and toss with the paprika.
Brown the cubes in a skillet...
Add the vegetables and cook for a few minutes to blanch.
This speeds up the cooking of the stew so it is done when the pumpkin is done.
Ladle the stew into the pumpkin and bake for about 1 hour at 375 degrees.
You can tell when it is done by poking a small knife through the top of the pumpkin
and it is soft. You don't want to bake this so long that the squash collapses.
I ladeled some of the juices out into the frying pan, brought to a boil and thickened it with
a slurry of 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup water blended together.
This step is optional if you like a thickened stew.
Ladle some of the stew in a bowl and scrape some of pumpkin from the side and spoon it around
the stew. I topped it with fresh chopped parsley.
Large close up of scooping out some pumpkin with the Stew.
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