Pumpkin stuffed with lamb
6 servings
100 minutes
Stuffed pumpkin is an ideal dish for autumn and winter or just cold weather. It is good to cook pilaf in pumpkin, traditional or sweet, or to cook thick soup with spicy French cheese and nutmeg. Or you can make it even simpler: fill it with good lamb, add oriental spices and herbs and just bake - you will get a surprisingly tender and warming roast.
1
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut off the top of a small pumpkin (for example, acorn variety) and carefully remove all the seeds from the inside with a spoon. Grease the inside with butter, cover the pumpkin with the cut-off top as a 'lid', and place it in the oven for thirty minutes.
- Pumpkin: 1 piece
- Butter: 50 g
2
Clean the lamb (you can take the brisket or shoulder) from membranes and cut off as much fat as possible (excess fat can give an unpleasant smell when roasting), then cut into small pieces - about 2×2 cm. Slice the onion into half rings.
- Mutton: 400 g
- Red onion: 1 head
3
Heat butter in a pan (to prevent smoking, you can add about a teaspoon of vegetable oil) and lightly sauté the onion. Add the meat and fry, stirring, for about ten minutes. Add cumin.
- Butter: 50 g
- Ground cumin (zira): 1 teaspoon
4
After a couple of minutes, add a can of peeled and finely chopped canned tomatoes, along with the juice, sugar, and salt to the pan. Mix and simmer everything together for another thirty minutes.
- Canned tomatoes: 1 jar
- Sugar: pinch
- Salt: to taste
5
When the meat is ready and the sauce thickens, add saffron, finely chopped parsley, and cilantro to the pan, mix gently, and leave on the heat for another seven to eight minutes.
- Saffron: pinch
- Parsley: 1 bunch
- Coriander: 1 bunch
6
Remove the skillet with the lamb from the heat and let it cool slightly. Then carefully stuff the baked pumpkin with the meat - the filling should fit completely inside the pumpkin so it can be closed with a 'lid'.
7
Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees. Place the stuffed and tightly closed pumpkin on a small baking tray or in a baking dish and put it in the oven for twenty to twenty-five minutes.
8
Remove the cooked pumpkin from the oven and let it cool slightly. You can serve the pumpkin whole or cut it into portions and place it on plates. Eat the meat together with the fragrant and soft pumpkin flesh.