With autumn comes foliage and the magic of colors in its red, yellow, green, and orange shades. The plants light up, and the leaves create soft and colorful carpets… and under these carpets, in the vegetable garden or in the garden, wonderful creations of the same autumn colors peek out.
Yes, it’s really them, the Pumpkins! There are many types but only a few are edible; the others leave us only a visual satisfaction for their magnificent shades and shapes, the most disparate and incredible to furnish our homes with splendid table centerpieces or to make small musical instruments out of them.
But the edible ones are real bearers of health. In fact, the pumpkin, in addition to being widely used in the kitchen in various dishes or on its own, is rich in water and vitamins as well as having antioxidant properties, in short, it is good and good for you.
Stuffed pumpkin is one of my favorite recipes. A wineskin that to be a very tasty dish, looks scenically well and is perfect both for a dinner of true conviviality and for a dinner for two…
Let’s see it together, in a proposal that contains flavors that mix ingredients from different Italian regions …
Ingredients for 4 people:
– 1 pumpkin of about 2/3kg (you can use either the Mantuan pumpkin or the delicate pumpkin typical of Sicily). Both are not very watery, therefore a guarantee of a strong flavor.
– 1 small red onion
– 200 grams of taleggio
– 200 grams of sausage (you can choose the one you like best, undoubtedly the pork one is a little tastier)
– 20 g of chopped hazelnuts (I recommend the Piedmontese ones)
– 20 gr of chopped pistachios (the Sicilian ones are perfect)
Method:
Cut the top of the pumpkin creating “the hat” that will serve as a lid. For the measure, taking into consideration the volume of the pumpkin, you can engrave the upper part considering about 4 to 6 cm from the stem. If you are not familiar with the peel of the pumpkin, I recommend using a medium-sized knife and proceeding very slowly.
Empty the seeds from the inside of the pumpkin and remove the pulp, being careful however to leave some on the sides, about 1 cm thick at the edge at the most.
At this point wrap it in a silver paper (make 2 or 3 cross-shaped sheets) and put it back to cook in a preheated oven at 160/180 degrees static oven for about 1 hour. The cooking must be evaluated according to the size of the pumpkin. It will have to cook but not fall apart, as it will then make a second pass in the oven.
On the side, while the pumpkin is cooking, sauté the diced pulp with the red onion until it is soft.
In another pan, sauté the sausage over low heat for 3 minutes with a drizzle of olive oil, it must remain soft.
Remove the pumpkin from the oven and lift the “hat”, check with a fork that the inner edges are cooked. At this point insert the pumpkin, chunks of sausage, and chunks of Taleggio cheese in layers, sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and pistachios, and bake for another 30/40 minutes, covering it with aluminum foil. Remove it from the oven, put it on a serving dish, lift the lid and add a little more pistachio grain to color it green. Bring it to the table with the lid half open… et voilà, open and melt into the taste, enjoy your meal!
