Spiced Pumpkin

Photo by Rasiel. Flickr

This recipe is a complete creation of my own. Since I absolutely love both east and west Indian cuisine, I decided to use some Indian spices while making this dish. The best way to make this recipe is by tasting and adding your ingredients through out the cooking process. Therefore, I will not be including measurements.


Ingredients;

1 small to medium pumpkin, pulp and seeds removed

Olive oil

1/3 cup of water

Cinnamon

Saffron

Turmeric

Curry

Ground coriander

5 cloves of crushed garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Shaved coconut (optional)

Raisins (optional)

Wash and clean out your pumpkin as you would a jack-o-lantern.Take out your handy dandy cutting board and carefully start cutting the pumpkin into cubes with a very sharp knife. Please be careful not to cut yourself while doing this, the flesh is very solid. After you've cut everything into cubes, take the cubes and carefully slice the skins off of each cube. Place the pumpkin in a large frying pan, with a good amount of olive oil covering the bottom of the pan. Put your stove on medium high, add 1/3 cup of water to the pan and cover. Stir often, scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent burning and sticking. As the pumpkin starts to soften add the cinnamon, saffron, turmeric, curry and ground coriander to the pan. Stir everything together well and reduce your heat to medium. If you have a mortar and pestle, use it to crush your garlic and add it to the mixture along with more olive oil and some salt and pepper. If you are going to use coconut shavings in your recipe, now would be a good time to add them. Through out this whole process, you will continue to add olive oil and spices to the pumpkin, until your taste buds are satisfied. Keep stirring frequently as the pumpkin continues to cook down. While it's cooking down, you can start to mashing everything slowly. When your pumpkin is very soft and has the consistency of mashed potatoes, you can stir in raisins the last five minutes before removing the pan from the stove. Once removed from the stove, transfer to a bowl and serve. Spiced pumpkin makes a great side dish or it can be served as a main dish with brown basmati rice.