Pumpkin Curry
/I love pumpkin. And I love curry. So when looking for a few new recipes to try this fall I thought, why not take two things I love and smash them together in a awesome and amazing deliciousness?!?!
I was on the hunt. Pumpkin curry? Why not.
Then I found a recipe from popsugar, and with a few slight modifications (apparently I can't make anything according to a recipe) it turned out pretty good! Wait, who am I kidding? It wasn't just pretty good, it was amazing.
As for the recipe, you can try the original or try my only slightly different version below. I only made a couple of changes from the recipe I found. A bit more butter to saute the onion, and less salt (you get enough flavor from the vegetable broth! In fact, next time I make it I'm going to try it without salt and see how it goes!).
INGREDIENTS
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, chopped
2-1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan Pink Salk
2 pounds pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces***
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup frozen baby peas
Fresh cilantro, for garnish
*Winter squash can be substituted for pumpkin (if you must...)
DIRECTIONS (pics below)
Heat butter in a large pan over medium-high heat, add onion, and cook until golden-brown, about five minutes. Add garlic and cook one minute more.
Stir in curry powder and pepper. Add pumpkin and cook for five minutes, stirring frequently.
Pour in broth and raisins, cover, and reduce heat to medium. After 15 minutes, add peas. Replace cover and continue to cook until pumpkin is tender, five to 10 minutes more. Garnish with cilantro.
Serves 4.
Once you have your ingredients prepared, this recipe is fairly easy and comes together very quickly. However, the cleaning and chopping of the pumpkin can be a labor of love. As you can see in the pictures I cut the pumpkin in half and used an ice cream scoop to clean out the guts and seeds before using a knife to slice off the skin. The second time I made this recipe I used a knife and sliced the skin off before chopping the pumpkin in half and a large spoon to gut and clean. I'm not sure if there is a better way, but if there is I'll find it. Next time I'm Googling it, for sure.
The other thing I do when making this recipe is prepare my own vegetable broth. I find that I use vegetable broth often enough, that it's just easier to have some on hand. You can make your own and freeze it (condense it down into ice cubes so it takes less space!) or keep bullion cubes around (low sodium cubes can be hard to find, but they exist!)
As for the pan, make sure it's large enough to hold not only all of the pumpkin but the broth as well. Just brown the onions and garlic in the bottom of your large pan (pot?) and clean up is simple as well... except for that dang pumpkin mess! But, I suppose, that's the downfall of cooking with fresh pumpkin. The upside? It's delicious. Seriously delicious.
SUGGESTED MODIFICATIONS:
So, you may have noticed there isn't any "meat" in this recipe. In fact it's vegan and gluten free! For some of you, that makes you ecstatic, for others, maybe not so much.
If you wanted to add a protein source to this dish to keep someone in your life happy, I would suggest doing a curried shrimp. With the flavor profile of the curry that's what I would gravitate towards, but you don't have to take my word for it. If you want to try something else- go for it!
Here's what I would do:
Melt a little butter in a skillet. Saute shrimp with 1/2-1 teaspoon curry powder and a dash of ground pepper (depending on the amount of shrimp you use).
Enjoy!
Have you tried this recipe? I would LOVE to know what you think! Comment below with thoughts and modifications for everyone living the FRICKin Good Life!
