Beyond Jack O’Lanterns and Pumpkin Pie: Pumpkins as a Main Course

Though the U.S. pumpkin crop seems destined to serve as either fall decor or as a macabre candleholder to grace the front porch each Halloween, the French have long known the pleasure and ease which comes from filling the hollow of a pumpkin with bread, cheese and meat, roasting it until the golden flesh has caramelized and the scent of the rich, creamy stuffing beckons.

I first saw a stuffed pumpkin last year on an episode of Martha Stewart which featured one of my favorite food writers and cookbook authors, Dorie Greenspan. 

Greenspan, who splits her time between New York and Paris, shared a fabulous recipe with Martha’s audience she had discovered from one of her French friends. She called it “Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good,” and with ingredients such as bacon, cheese and cream, it truly is good.

Julia Child has a similar recipe entitled “Potiron Tout Rond” (stuffed pumpkin), though hers includes much more cream, and the consistency is more stewy.

Greenspan said her recipe is like a rough draft, allowing the cook to add and delete as desired.

Want to eliminate the bacon or sausage? Go ahead, and make it vegetarian. Can’t tolerate dairy? Discard the cheese and substitute chicken stock for the cream. Want to add some vegetables to the mix? Sauté these with a bit of garlic and shallots and add to the pumpkin. Are you gluten-intolerant? Try substituting the bread with rice, quinoa or a gluten-free bread.

You can also switch the pumpkin with a different type of squash, such as a kabocha or acorn variety. These, too, work beautifully.

Cooking times and filling amounts will totally depend on the size and variety of your pumpkin or squash. I found that the smaller “pumpkin pie” varieties are the best for flavor. The larger variety used for jack-o-lanterns tend to have less flesh and are not as sweet. The very small pumpkins could also be used to serve individually at a dinner party.  

To serve the roasted stuffed pumpkin, you have two choices.

One, serve whole and allow diners to spoon out the insides—a great choice if you want a beautiful presentation for a dinner party or your Thanksgiving table. Or, slice the pumpkin into wedges—easier to pass around a table, though without the same "wow" factor.

I personally prefer Greenspan’s recipe to Child’s, though I did change several of the ingredients to satisfy my own cravings and to use up what I had on hand. Her basic stuffing ingredients are bread, cheese, garlic and cream. My adapted recipe includes sweet Italian sausage, shallots, shitake mushrooms and spinach. Next time I will try substituting goat cheese, pancetta, basil and a spicy chile pepper. I've also used the recipe with a kabocha squash, gorgonzola and apples.

Think of the recipe as a springboard for using up whatever you have on hand.

STUFFED PUMPKIN

adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe on her website

Makes 2-4 servings

1 pumpkin, about 2 1/2 to 3 pounds

3 cups stale bread, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 cup Gruyere cheese (or other cheese of your choice), cut into 1/2-inch chunks

1 cup cooked sweet Italian sausage, sauteed

1 cup shitake mushrooms, quartered 

1 tablespoon butter

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1 small shallot, minced

1 large handful baby spinach, chopped roughly

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/3 - 1/2 cup heavy cream

Freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Either line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat or find a Dutch oven that's the same diameter as the pumpkin. (If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it will also stick to the casserole, so you'll have to serve it from the pot, which is a rustic, appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a sheet, you can present it free-standing, if it doesn't collapse in the oven.  

Saute the mushrooms, in a medium sized saute pan, over medium heat with the butter. Add the garlic and shallots. Cook about 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms are soft, and the shallots are translucent. Add the spinach and cook 30 seconds until wilted. Add the balsamic vinegar and allow to reduce to a glaze. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Using a very sturdy knife, cut a cap off the top of the pumpkin. This isn't an easy job - I went around the top of the pumpkin with my knife at a 45-degree angle to get a nice size cap. Clear away any seeds and strings from the cap and hold it aside while you scoop out the seeds and filaments inside the pumpkin. (Hold onto this goop -- you can separate the seeds from the filaments and roast them.) 

Season the inside of the pumpkin with salt and pepper and put it on the sheet or in the casserole.

Toss the bread, cheese, sausage and mushroom mixture together in a bowl, then pack it into the pumpkin. The filling should go into the pumpkin and fill it well.  You might have a little too much filling or you might need to add to it -- it's hard to give exact amounts.  

Season the cream with salt, pepper and several gratings of fresh nutmeg and pour the cream into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little. You don't want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want to get a feeling that they're moistened.

Put the cap back in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours—check after 90 minutes—or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbly and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so of baking so that the top can brown.

About this column: In this column, former chef and current food-writer Amy Baker will write about local chefs, introduce resident foodies and their epicurean delights, and share from her table a passion for all things gastronomic here in northern Westchester.