IT’S PUMPKIN BUTCHERING SEASON

 

So many possibilities with these pumpkins. The largest one is 22 inches long.

Big enough to be sentient beasts are these pumpkins, from the huerta of friends who live in the Granada highlands. The squashes have served as objets d’art on my kitchen shelf for awhile. But their time has come to submit to the knife. It’s pumpkin-butchering time. 

Knife to the heart. Not the best way to cut squash.

Hard-skinned varieties, known as winter squash, keep well during colder months. But, once broached, the flesh needs to be cooked off as soon as possible. I needed to come up with several pumpkin dishes in close succession. 

Before butternut and other small varieties of squash became widely available, my local village market sold only huge pumpkins, hacked off into pieces and sold by weight. Home cooks use the pumpkin with vegetables, legumes and sausages in stews such as berza (recipe here). 

Pumpkin guts.

    I cut the middle-sized pumpkin into thirds. (The best way to cut it is not to plunge the knife in, but to place the blade on the surface and, exerting some pressure, roll the squash against the blade.)

  Once emptied of seeds, the cavity of the thickest section seemed to beg to be stuffed. I once made a vegetarian version stuffed with grains, chickpeas and tofu (that recipe is here). This one would be stuffed with meat, without even bread crumbs, so it’s fairly low-carb.  

   Use ground meat of choice. I have ground chicken thighs, but turkey, pork, lamb or beef are equally good. The same mixture could be used to stuff peppers or baked like meatloaf, in a pan by itself. If you've got a bigger squash, increase the quantity of meat.

The squash is stuffed with meat and cheese. It bakes in a cazuela with tomatoes, which make the sauce.

Carve the pumpkin into wedges. Serve sauce alongside.

Pumpkin Stuffed with Meat

Calabaza Rellena con Carne

Serves 3 as a main dish.

2-pound whole pumpkin or squash

Salt

1 pound ground meat

3 tablespoons olive oil + additional for the baking dish

¼ cup pine nuts

¼ cup diced bacon (1 ounce)

1 cup chopped onion

½ cup diced red bell pepper

½ cup diced celery (2 stalks)

2 cloves garlic

½ teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika)

1 teaspoon oregano

Pinch of cayenne

Grating of nutmeg

Freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup chopped parsley

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup grated cheese (2 ½ ounces)

1 ½ cups canned crushed tomatoes

Cut the stem and top off the pumpkin. Scrape out and discard the seeds and stringy pulp in the center. Lightly salt the inside of the pumpkin and set it upside down in a colander to drain.

Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the pine nuts until they are golden. Skim them out and reserve them. Add the bacon, onion, red pepper, celery and garlic to the skillet and sauté them on moderate heat until onion is softened, 8 minutes. Season with 1 teaspoon salt, cumin, pimentón, oregano, cayenne, nutmeg, pepper and parsley. Stir in the pine nuts. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Heap stuffing in shell.

Place the meat in a mixing bowl. Add the sautéed bacon and vegetables. Mix in the egg and cheese. Spoon the meat mixture into the cavity of the pumpkin. Don’t compact it. Set the stuffed pumpkin in an oiled baking dish. Pour the crushed tomatoes around it. Salt the tomatoes lightly. Drizzle additional oil over the pumpkin and tomatoes.

Bake the pumpkin 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350ºF. Bake until the pumpkin is tender and meat is thoroughly cooked (it should register 150ºF on an instant-read thermometer), about 60 minutes. 

Squash baked with tomatoes.

     

     To serve, cut the pumpkin and stuffing in wedges or scoop the filling out of the shell. Accompany with the tomatoes and juices from the baking dish.

This piece of pumpkin roasted alongside the stuffed one. It makes a good side dish with roast chicken or pork chop. Or, perhaps to be pureed for pumpkin pie filling.

A third of the squash, cubed, in a vegetarian curry with tofu, coconut milk and peanuts.

Links to more pumpkin recipes here.

Another sort of meat loaf, Lamb Roll Wrapped in Chard.

PICADILLO—MINCED MEAT DELUXE

Don’t we all love ground meat? It’s all about versatility. From burgers to meatballs, kefta, meatloaf, stuffing for vegetables, pasta sauces and a lot more, ground meat makes for easy, quick cooking meals, often economical and usually kid-friendly.

Most minced meat recipes work equally well with beef, pork, lamb or chicken. In Spain, the preferred meat is pork, whether it’s for meatballs or stuffed peppers.

But I’ve taken to using ground chicken thighs instead, including for American-style meatloaf and burgers. What I totally avoid is prepared and packaged ground meat that contains additives and often fillers as well. I choose lean meat and have the butcher grind it for me. I add (healthful mono-unsaturated) olive oil to the grind to make it juicier.

Picadillo--ground meat, seasoned and fried.

This recipe for Spanish picadillo—minced meat that’s seasoned and sautéed--is a good example of the versatility of ground meat. As a main dish, it’s served in Galicia accompanied by cachelos, boiled potatoes, and cornbread; in Castilla y León with patatas fritas, in Andalusia, with rice.

Picadillo, like sloppy joes, is great on a toasted bun. Rolled in Mexican wheat flour tortillas, it’s an easy filling for burritos. Paired with a fried egg and fried bread, picadillo is a big breakfast or light supper. Add picadillo to beans, chickpeas or lentils for a satisfying meal. And, it sure is terrific on top of pasta.

Serve picadillo on a toasted bun for a kid-friendly meal.

Serve picadillo over a mound of rice.

Breakfast or supper? Picadillo with a fried egg and triangles of fried bread.

Picadillo with pasta, olé.

You can add ingredients to the meat mix—sliced olives, corn kernels, diced zucchini, mushrooms, chopped spinach, diced carrots—and change the seasoning to suit your mood. Vary the type of pimentón (paprika) in the seasoning. Use sweet plus picante (hot) and smoked and unsmoked.

Minced Meat Sauté
Picadillo de Carne

Use ground pork, beef, lamb or chicken for the picadillo. Season the meat and allow it to marinate, refrigerated, for at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours. When frying the meat, spread it in a hot skillet and let it fry 2 or 3 minutes without stirring. That allows the meat to brown before it starts giving off liquid. Then use a wooden spatula to turn and break up the globs of meat. The picadillo can be fairly chunky or broken into small bits. Remove the meat and all its juices from the skillet before making the sofrito of onions, peppers and tomato.

Serves 4.

1 pound ground meat (pork, chicken, beef or lamb)
3 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon coarse salt
½ teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika)
¼ teaspoon smoked pimentón picante or a pinch of cayenne
Pinch of thyme
¼ cup white wine
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped green pepper
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup peeled and chopped tomatoes
Salt and pepper
¼ cup sliced olives (optional)
Chopped flat leaf parsley to garnish

Place the ground meat in a bowl. Crush the garlic in a mortar with the coarse salt. Add the two kinds of pimentón, thyme, wine and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the garlic mixture to the meat. Use the hands to mix it thoroughly into the meat. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Spread the ground meat in the skillet and let it brown, without stirring. Then use a wooden spatula to break up the meat and turn it. Continue cooking until meat loses its pink color and is fairly loose. Remove meat to a bowl and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet. Sauté the onion and green and red peppers on medium heat until softened, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, turn up the heat, and cook 5 minutes until they give off their liquid.

Return the meat and its juices to the skillet. Add sliced olives, if desired. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. The meat should still be juicy, though without a lot of liquid.remaining. (If the picadillo is to be served with pasta, add a ladle of pasta-cooking water to the meat before removing from the heat.)

Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley. 

For more about types of pimentón: https://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/pimenton-in-translation.html
More recipes for ground meat:
Meatballs in Almond Sauce.
Middle Eastern Meatball Soup.
Squid Stuffed with Ground Meat.
Lamb Roll Wrapped in Chard.
Chicken and Partridge Pâté.
Peppers Stuffed with Ground Pork.
Stuffed Cabbage.
Meat-Stuffed Eggplant.
Picadillo for Chorizo.