pumpkin stuffed with apricot pilaff
i love stuffed vegetables and there's such a huge variety of them that i'm going to explore in the next couple of weeks. i have made some persian style stuffed vegetables before and i tried to get inspired by a recipe in the new cookbook i received from my nephew. then i improvised mixing and mingling these couple of recipes and made my own filling. ingredients:
- one pumpkin
- one cup basmati rice
- one teaspoon saffron
- enough olive oil and butter
- stripes of orange peel finely sliced
- one teaspoon shelled pistachio and almonds
- half a cup dried cranberries and apricots
- one bunch of fresh parsley
- one onion
- one cup lean ground beef
- four fresh tomatoes
- turmeric
- ground sea salt and black pepper
first preheat the oven to 400F. cut the pumpkin into two halves and scoop out the seeds. bake the pumpkin for twenty minutes in a baking tray. in the meanwhile chop the onion and cook the ground beef with the onion, turmeric, salt, and pepper in a pan. add chopped tomatoes and chopped parsley after twenty minutes. let them cook together another ten minutes.
in the meanwhile cook the rice with two cups of water, salt, and butter till the water boils. then let it cook for a while on low until the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked but still has a bite. heat the oil and butter in a dutch oven. stir saffron in a cup of hot water and add to the mix. add coriander seeds, orange peels, pistachios, almonds, cranberries and apricots, then stir in the cooked rice. season with salt and pepper. add the meat to the mix or fill some of the pumpkins only vegetarian to have both varieties.
spoon the pilaff into the pumpkins. make the baking tray or a dutch oven with olive oil and mint. bake the filled pumpkins for another twenty minutes in the oven with a lid or aluminum foil too keep them moist. nousheh jahn!