October Pumpkin Compote

The last two weeks of October and the first week of November make the period when pumpkins are available everywhere in Norway. During the rest of the year it is super difficult to find pumpkins here where they are not only of very bad quality but also super expensive. Those are normally sold in shops run by immigrants, for immigrants buyers like me, where the cost of the pumpkin can reach NOK 50,00 for a kilo.


(Danish pumpkin)




Since we are in the midst of the Norwegian pumpkin period and I was lucky to find a beautiful, big, orange and ripe pumpkin for which I paid only NOK 23,00 (R$ 8,00). The pumpkin I bought probably weight between 8 and 10 kg but I bought it where they sell it as a unit.




Norwegians in general don't eat pumpkins, they make holes and faces on it and light candles inside them, just like they do in the other countries during the celebration of the day of the dead.


(Brazilian pumpkin compote)

Brazilians, on the other hand, eat a lot of pumpkin and love this gorgeous vegetable. In Rio the best dish is pumpkin purê with curried meat (carne seca com abóbora), pumpkin risotto (arroz de abóbora), pumpkin soup (sopa de abóbora), pumpkin bread (pão de abóbora) and the classic dessert pumpkin compote or pumpkin compote with coconut (doce de abóbora com côco) are just few examples.



My plan is to use the entire pumpkin I bought, and the dishes will be: pumpkin compote, pumpkin soup, pumpkin risotto and pumpkin and white chocolate mousse.

I have started with the compote which was cooked with cinnamon sticks and vanilla pod which will be my entry in the event Waiter there's something in my... promoted by the blog Cook Sister!, a great blog from South Africa. In the link to the event you can find more about it and about the topic which are vegetables of the Cucurbitaceae family i.e: pumpkins, squashes/courgettes and zucchini are some of them. Melons are also allowed, so, go for it! The deadline is Nov 1st. The link to the event is here

This is the first event of The Missing Flavor. Brave new blogs!



(Pumpkin boiling in cinnamon and vanilla syrup)

Pumpkin Compote

Recipe:

3 cups ripe pumpkin cut in small cubes
2 cups crystal sugar
3 cups water
Vanilla pod
Two sticks of cinnamon
Two sticks of gloves (optional)
One anise star (optional)


Cook the sugar in the water with cinnamon sticks and vanilla pod until a syrup starts to take form. Add the pumpkins and cook them until they are soft, glazed but not melting. Remove the pumpkins from the syrup, drain the liquid and cook it again until it is reduced to half.



(Cooked pumpkin)


(Boiling the syrup)

Remove vanilla pod and cinnamon sticks from the syrup. Transfer reduced syrup to a compote jar, add the pumpkins to the syrup and refrigerate. Serve with fresh curried cheese such as Minas cheese (queijo de Minas) or Gräddost


(Pumpkin compote with syrup)






(Served with slices of Gräddost, Swedish cheese)