Now, since I have founded this blog, I suppose I should also
write something down. Something that sounds and looks delicious would of course
be preferable, so I shall start with a dish me and my beloved friend cooked
last weekend.
We visited the food and wine fair held annually in our town
(nothing like food fairs in Italy or Great Britain for example but quite nice
still). I found some lovely finnish brie made from goat milk and very fine
honey for instance. I also bought medium-sized butternut squash from a stand
that sold organic vegetables.
It was my first meeting with this type of squash,
and my first thought of it was: "What a peculiar name". This was
because its Finnish name is nothing like its English one. In fact, in Finland
it is called "myskikurpitsa", a name that I would translate as
"musk pumpkin". I still don´t know why this squash has been named
such here. This vegetable is called either squash and pumpkin depending
on your country, but I am more inclined to call it pumpkin due to its texture.
Whichever name you use is up to yourself. In Finnish, "kurpitsa", can
mean either type.
But anyway, with me one of the squashes came, and half of it was
used in this:
Roasted pumpkins stuffed with minced meat sauce
Serves for 4 people
1,5 kg small fall pumpkins such as butternut squashes,
eightball or oneball (one big will do as well I find)
3 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 200 celsius degrees. Wash pumpkins
and slice through them. Remove seeds and threads. Drizzle with olive oil and
balsamic vinegar. Season generously with salt & pepper. Roast the pumpkins
in the oven till they are soft ( about 15-35 minutes depending size.)
While pumpkins are in the oven, make the sauce:
2 garlic gloves
2 onions
1 red pepper (paprika)
2 tablespoon olive oil
300 g minced meat (either lamp or beef)
1 tablespoon tomato purée
½ dl meat stock
½ dl red wine
1 teaspoon sugar
salt and pepper
grounded chili (½ teaspoon or as much as you yourself like)
½ dl fresh herbs like parsley
1 dl yellow raisins
1 dl pine nuts
2 dl grated parmensan
2. Peel and cut onions and cut paprika also. Sweat onions in olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add minced meat and cook till the meat is well done. Next, add tomato purèe and paprika. After a few minutes add meat stock, red wine and spices to the sauce. Let the sauce simmer about 10 minutes.
3. Mix in herbs, raisins and pine nuts, and after that add half of grated parmesan.
4. Stuff the pumpkins with the sauce. Spinkle remaining parmesan on top and put the pumpkins in the oven for a little, just so that the cheese melts and turns into lovely colour. Sprinkle some fresh parsley on top of the dish before serving.
Now all you have to do is enjoy. With this pumpkin course you could serve some salad with fruits for example. Spanish wine Quatro Pasos was a very good choice with these pumpkins, but goldenbrown ale could also be rather nice with this dish.
