Brooke Dojny: Pickled Pumpkin

Let your pumpkins live up to their beyond-pie potential.

Photo © Scott Dorrance

Gorgeous pumpkins and winter squash in their fantastic array of colors, shapes, and sizes are displayed in such profusion this time of year that it’s hard not to buy too many – either for cooking or for decorating. It used to be that edible pumpkins (as opposed to the large field pumpkins that are destined to become jack-o-lanterns) were a specialty crop that was rarely available commercially, but now all manner of smaller pumpkins grown for the table are showing up not just at farmers’ markets but in supermarkets, too. Varieties such as Sugar Pie, Baby Bear, and Cheese pumpkins, all meaty and wonderfully sweet, can be baked, steamed, puréed, stuffed — or even pickled.


The greatest challenge to cooking a pumpkin or winter squash is cutting through the thick skin to get at the tender flesh. I’ve found that putting the whole pumpkin in a microwave for 2 to 3 minutes softens the shell enough to cut through it more easily but it’s still best to use care during the cutting process, cutting slowly and steadily and even wearing an oven mitt on the non-cutting hand. Or, a more dramatic, messier method — and one that kids really enjoy — is to hold the pumpkin over your head and drop it onto newspapers spread on a hard floor. It will break into pieces. Once inside, use a large spoon to scrape out the seeds.

Pickled Pumpkin

This unique way to treat a pumpkin results in tender, translucent pickles that are somewhat akin to pickled watermelon rind. They’re especially welcome on the Thanksgiving table.

Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients:
Half a 2- to 3-pound cooking pumpkin
2 tablespoons kosher salt
¾ cup cider vinegar
⅔ cup sugar
2 slices unpeeled fresh ginger
1 thick slice lemon peel
Half a cinnamon stick

Directions:

1. Cut pumpkin into large wedges, remove seeds, and peel with a vegetable peeler or paring knife. Cut into 1-inch cubes.
2. Dissolve salt in 2 cups cold water in a large bowl. Add pumpkin, stir to combine, cover, and set aside at cool room temperature for 6 to 12 hours. Drain into a colander and rinse well.
3. Combine vinegar, sugar, ¼ cup water, ginger, lemon peel, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, and add the pumpkin. Cover and simmer over low heat until pumpkin is tender and translucent, 10 to 20 minutes. 
4. Cool pickles in their syrup, then cover and refrigerate for at least 12 hours or for up to 3 weeks. 

Recipe excerpted from Dishing Up® Maine © 2006 by Brooke Dojny. Photo © Scott Dorrance. All rights reserved.

Brooke Dojny is the author or co-author of more than a dozen cookbooks, including The New England Clam Shack Cookbook, Dishing Up® Maine, and Lobster! (all Storey Publishing). She won the James Beard Award in 1997 for The AMA Family Cookbook, co-authored with Melanie Barnard. Brooke started her culinary career in the 1980s when she worked as a catering directress for Martha Stewart. From 1990 to 2004, Brooke co-authored (with Melanie Barnard) Bon Appetit’s monthly “Every-Night Cooking” column. She has written for most of the other major culinary magazines and has been a regular contributor to Down East Magazine. She lives on the coast of Maine, where she can be found hanging out at clam shacks and farmers’ markets. Her next book for Storey is Chowderland, to be published in 2015.