Roasted Pumpkin stuffed with Honeyed Lamb

This recipe is incredible.

It’s nutty, herby, sweet and with a bit of fire i.e. all the flavours! Imagine nutty roasted pumpkin filled with sticky fragrant lamb mince and topped with crunchy pine nuts… delicious!

A couple of weeks back, I got taken in by the crates of pumpkin outside a wholefoods shop (I’m sure I’m not the first) and spent a solid five minutes choosing which ones to buy. There were orange ones, green ones and even one that looked like the Witch of the Pumpkin World. I believe this pumpkin is a ‘Carnival Pumpkin’ and is meant to be best for roasting. It can be used as an alternative to butternut squash and I found it had lots more nutty flavour and was fractionally easier to hack away at! If you want to get all clued up on the pumpkin world, this site has a great guide.

Back to the recipe and why it is the aforementioned ‘incredible’:

1. Firstly, you get to eat out of a pumpkin bowl: who doesn’t love that? Plus you only have one pumpkin cut to make: easy!
2. It’s great for easy weeknight suppers or for impressing friends.
3. The flavours are great: fennel gives it a lovely almost-refreshing taste, then there’s the nutty-ness of the pumpkin and the pine nuts, the comforting spices of cinnamon and ginger, and the sticky sweetness of the honey.
4. It’s all cooked and served in 30 minutes with a break in the middle for washing up all of those pesky boards and knives.

All in all, if you fancy making something a little different this autumn, try out this one!

The recipe is adapted from Winter Kitchen, I used pumpkin and added in some extra herbs and spices but if you haven’t come across this book before, you should really check it out. It’s full of tasty comfort food with lots of recipes for tarts and quiches: my favourite. Everything I’ve cooked from the book has tasted really good so yes, take a look!

Serves 4, ready in 30 minutes. Recipe adapted from Winter Kitchen.

• Two or three pumpkins (depending on size)
• Rosemary, either fresh or dried
• 1 red onion, finely diced
• 1 clove of garlic, finely diced
• 1 red chilli, finely diced
• 500g lamb mince
• 1 ½ teaspoons of cumin
• ½ teaspoon of ginger
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
• 250ml of chicken stock
• 1 ½ tablespoons of runny honey
• Handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• Handful of pine nuts
• Fresh green vegetables to serve

1. Heat the oven to 200°C
2. Halve and deseed the pumpkins and place on a baking tray, spray with oil and season with salt, pepper and rosemary. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, place a frying pan and a little olive oil over a low heat. Add the onion and fry gently for 10 minutes.
4. Add the garlic and chilli to the pan and fry for another minute.
5. Add the lamb to the pan and break up with a wooden spoon. Once it has browned off a little add the cumin, ginger, cinnamon and fennel seeds; season, stir well and leave for a further minute.
6. Pour in the chicken stock and honey, stir well and leave to bubble away for 15 minutes or until the stock has all gone. Stir once or twice but don’t let it burn.
7. In the last minute, add in the chopped parsley and pine nuts, turn the heat up a little, stirring well.
8. Once the pumpkin and lamb have cooked, fill the pumpkin bowls with the lamb and serve with lots of green vegetables.

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