Secrets of the Tulalip Chefs

 

The award-winning chefs who design and oversee the restaurants at the Tulalip Resort Casino share their favorite recipes and tips with our readers. Although the dishes look and taste like gourmet treats, even household cooks can follow these instructions to put the wow factor back into family dinners.

 

Summer may be over, if it even started this year that is, but what little summer we did have was enough to produce some great local fall produce.

While I was picking up some larger pumpkins for our carving contest, I also picked up a couple of small sugar pumpkins so I could stuff and bake them. The sugar pumpkin is made for baking and eating. They have a thinner skin, a sweeter taste and are not a grainy as a jack-o-lantern pumpkin.

There are numerous ways to fill and cook a pumpkin using fall vegetables, soups, bread puddings and, in this case, ground beef and wild rice.

Another fun part of making a stuffed pumpkin is that you get to bake some fresh pumpkin seeds; I like to use them for a garnish and eat the rest.

If you like you can carve a little jack-o-lantern face into the pumpkin. To do this only cut about a half-inch into the pumpkin with a small knife to make the eyes, nose and mouth; don't cut all the way through to the inside. Then using a butter knife, chip or peel off the skin inside the area where you cut, only going about a 1/4 inch into the pumpkin.



How to make the stuffed pumpkins:


3 sugar pumpkins, 6" diameter each

2 lbs ground beef

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp shallots, chopped

2 Tbsp garlic, chopped

1 Red bell pepper

6 oz. leeks, thin sliced

1/2 cup pine nuts

1 cup white wine

3 cups chicken stock

2 cups wild rice, or long grain rice

Salt and pepper to taste



Cut the tops off the pumpkins and pull the seeds and insides out. Save the seeds and discard the stringy stuff. (If there is a little on the seeds, that's okay.) Save the tops too.

Season the insides of the pumpkins with a little salt and pepper.


1. Brown the ground beef in a large pan and then drain out the excess oil and set the browned beef in a bowl.

2. Melt the butter in the same pan on medium heat. When the butter is melted, add the shallots, garlic, bell pepper, leeks and pine nuts.

Sauté them for about 2 minutes.

3. Then add the beef, wine, chicken stock and rice. Stir enough to mix everything up and bring to a boil. Season with a little salt and pepper.

4. Next add the beef rice mixture to the hollowed pumpkins.

Put the pumpkin tops back on and bake them at 350F for about 45-60 minutes, until the rice is done and the pumpkin is soft enough to poke a toothpick through easily.



To prepare the pumpkin seeds:

Pumpkin seeds from 3 pumpkins

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tsp lemon juice


1. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the pumpkin seeds and spread them out on a baking pan in single layer; don't let them overlap too much.

2. Bake them at 350F for about 10-15 minutes or until they get brown and crispy. You can do while baking the stuffed pumpkins. Let them cool a little, save the pan.

3. Mix the powdered sugar, cayenne pepper and lemon juice together.

4. Mix the pumpkin seeds and the powdered sugar mixture together and spread back on the baking pan.

5. Put back in the oven and bake for 5-8 minutes, until the sugar caramelizes a little.

6. Stir them around while they cool so they don't stick to the pan too much.

Garnish your pumpkins with the seeds.

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