Recipes

Chosen from The Vegetarian Option by Simon Hopkinson, he writes "I first encountered this curious slightly hit-and-miss recipe in the back pages of the seminal book Great Chefs of France... The end result is quite delicious when scoops of softened pumpkin flesh are stirred into its stringy curds. Whether one should call it a soup, or a 'baked pumpkin with cheese and cream' is debatable; a recipe to play with, I feel."


Serves about 4

    1 small pumpkin, about 1.75-2kg
    400ml double cream
    1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
    Salt and freshly ground pepper
    150g Gruyere or Beaufort, freshly grated

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Cut off the top quarter of the pumpkin to make a lid and set aside. Scoop out the seeds and stringy membrane using a spoon. Heat the cream with the garlic and seasoning almost to a simmer, then take off the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

Strain the infused cream into the pumpkin cavity. Mix in the cheese, put on the lid and place in a roasting tin. Bake for 1 1/2 -2 hours until the pumpkin flesh is tender when pierced with a fork and the out skin of the pumpkin is nicely burnished; you may wish to turn the heat down slightly if the skin is becoming too brown.