Beef and pumpkin stews

by Nick Vagnoni, Posted Oct 24th 2005 @ 1:05PM

I’m not sure how it came up, but the last time I was home visiting family, our neighbor (who happens to be an excellent cook) mentioned a pumpkin and beef stew that someone in his family used to make. I’d never heard of stewing pumpkin with beef before, so I of course asked those Internets.

Several of the results involved serving the stew in a pumpkin shell. The one you see here is from the Texas Beef Council. Their recipe, called Jack O’Lantern Stew, doesn’t actually contain any pumpkin; it just says to serve the stew in a pumpkin. It also involves a jar of “medium or mild prepared picante sauce.” I think I’ll pass.

This recipe, which is supposedly popular in Argentina, says that the final hour of stewing should be done inside the pumpkin and that chunks of pumpkin should be scooped out with the stew.

Here’s a Chilean version of beef stew with calabaza or other sweet gourds.

Debra Samuels at the Boston Globe says the best pumpkins for stewing are known as cheese pumpkins or sugar pumpkins. An eight pound cheese pumpkin can hold enough stew for eight people, she says.

Personally, the Argentinean one looks like a winner. You might just see it again in the coming months here on Slashfood.

Filed Under: Fall Flavors, Ingredients
Tags: beef, dinner, fall flavors, fruit