Stuffing pumpkin with everything wonderful

When I was young and single in Macon, Ga., our friends would gather regularly for funky dinner parties. Another reporter and I -- both food freaks – would choose a cuisine, divide the dishes and cook the meal. It fulfilled two of my passions: exploring other cultures through their food and cooking for a large, appreciative audience.

 

Now married with children and far less disposable time, I jump at any chance to cook for a crowd. And those meals generally follow a theme, such as the two annual Seder meals I cooked for 60-plus people at church. For several years, my obsession compelled to me cook elaborate New Year’s Eve dinner parties for my relatives using recipes from the latest cookbooks by James Beard Award-winning Birmingham chefs Frank Stitt or Chris Hastings. One night, the family of a friend recovering from surgery needed dinner – and wound up with a three-course Indian meal from me.

 

I admit. I go overboard – although nothing will top the 25-dish Chinese-style banquet I cooked one year in Macon for a friend’s birthday.

 

Neither my wife, Anna, nor I were surprised when plans for a simple dinner for four last weekend turned into a four-course French meal, launched with champagne and underscored with French-themed music.

 

Anna bought me Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook “Around My FrenchTable” after hearing Greenspan discuss on NPR her favorite recipe, Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good. Turns out I had heard the same interview and was intrigued by her description of the recipe as well. So when fall rolled around, Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good beckoned.

 

We picked a date with another couple to get together and share a babysitter, telling them about this pumpkin dish baked whole with cheese, cream-soaked bread, garlic and herbs that I planned to cook.

 

Naturally, I couldn’t stop there. So I started thumbing through Greenspan’s cookbook for more inspiration. A must was French onion soup, inspired by an awesome version I had at the Mountain Brook restaurant Ollie Irene. Greenspan had a great recipe. Oh, those Cornish hens stuffed with sausage looked good. Hey, the fresh-cheese spread and pizza-like pissaladiere would be perfect appetizers once our guests arrive. Anna’s a vegetarian, and she’ll need something special if the rest of us are munching hens. She has liked baked Provençal-style tomatoes; how about the version of page 344? That led to the dessert chapter.

 

Heck. I actually took it easy on myself, even I did turn the onion soup into a two-day process involving a marrow-enriched homemade beef stock. I even replaced the stuffed Cornish hens with a simple roast chicken (if you can get the Poulet Rouge Fermier heritage chicken, which is sold at Whole Foods, it is worth the extra money for the flavor).

 

My joy of cooking entire dinners from cookbooks is part of what got me hooked several years back on reading the wonderful blog by Carol Blymire, “French Laundry at Home.” She prepared every recipe from the cookbook by world-renowned chef Thomas Keller and food-writing guru Michael Ruhlman from what generally is considered the best restaurant in the country.

 

Carol took her readers through each step, with plenty of photos to illustrate key points. And her adventures were not only enlightening, they were funny as well. She cut no corners on the recipes – even those calling for whole pig’s head. She did such a great job on that blog and her follow-up “Alinea at Home,” Hollywood may not have made the movie “Julie and Julia” if the producers had known about Carol.

 

So she inspires me to write about my own cooking adventures in my blog. But at this point, I must apologize to Carol, because while I took some helpful photos while cooking, I forgot to pause for the cause before I plated and served it. So there are no “after” photos, only “befores.” I am a poor protégé, Carol, but I promise to improve.

 

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good is, as Greenspan described it, more of an outline than a set recipe. She got it from a friend whose brother-in-law raised pumpkins near Lyon, France, and had played with the formula through the years. The concept is simple, but most diners will find it exotic. Gut a whole pumpkin, stuff it (with everything good) and bake it. You can make it vegetarian or not.

The pumpkin that inspired this meal, which I bought in late September, was way too big for this recipe. As it turns it, it wouldn’t even have fit into my oven. Greenspan’s recipe called for a 3-pound pumpkin, but I thought that was too small. The pumpkin I ultimately used weighed 10-plus pounds undressed. Ain’t it purty?

 

 

 

 

I neglected to weigh the pumpkin once it was cleaned of its seeds and stringy inner goop (again, Carol, I’m not worthy). Best measure: It fit nicely inside my cherished 5.5-quart Le Creuset Dutch oven, which the love of my life gave me recently.

Just like preparing a jack-o-lantern, I sliced open the cap with cuts at a 45-degree angle to allow it to sit snug when replaced. I sliced the innards from the cap, leaving a smooth bottom (the more juvenile among us now may emit a snerk).

The idea was to clean out the stringy stuff, but leave the pumpkin flesh. Then I salted and ground pepper into the interior, filled it with most of a baguette, sliced into cubes, and about 12 oz. of cave-aged gruyere cheese cut in cubes. I seasoned the mixture with more salt and pepper, dried rosemary and chopped fresh parsley, then put it into the hollowed-out pumpkin. This is what it looked like filled.

 

I poured a good 6 oz. of heavy cream over the stuffing, making sure everything was covered. I put the cap back in place, wrapping foil around the stem to keep it from burning (I had fantasies of taking the whole thing to the table, but didn’t).

If everyone’s a meat eater, I would heartily recommend adding cooked minced bacon to the stuffing mixture before baking the pumpkin. Since I was serving three omnivores and a fourth who eats no meat, I delivered the cooked minced bacon on the side.

Turns out I lucked out when I decided to get a smaller and fresher pumpkin for this dinner. The latter pumpkin fit just right in the Dutch oven (which I used in case the whole thing softened enough in the oven to fall apart). Also, the shorter pumpkin barely cleared the roof of my oven from the lowest rack.

I baked it a total of two hours at 350 degrees. As Greenspan recommended, I took off the cap for the final 20 minutes, which did help cook down some of the liquid.

A chef’s knife sliced easily through the cooked pumpkin, and it was easy to serve with its exquisite stuffing. The whole thing easily would have fed six, and maybe stretched to eight.

It was delicious. Like most folks, I’ve never eaten a basic orange pumpkin, only carved them into funny or hideous faces. My pumpkin pie comes from a can, although I may someday get all out-of-control and make it fresh.

Baked orange pumpkin tasted as expected, like a winter squash. The stuffing added a nutty, herbal dairy richness. Smoky, sweet pork bits put it over the top.

No wonder Greenspan liked this dish so much. We sure did.