As you know, every year for the last 4 years or so during Halloween season I have a tradition of making a pumpkin stew, or a beef stew that I bake inside of a pumpkin. Each year I have tried something a little different, attempting to find the perfect recipe I am fully happy with. This year I found the winner stew recipe, and Mom asked me to share it here! It is Emeril's Beef Stew from the Food Network, found here:
I won't retype everything here as it has a long ingredient list, etc, and clicking above will take you right there. I forgot to add the peas and the parsley at the end and didn't add any cayenne to the spices you put on the meat, and it still was perhaps the best stew I can ever remember having.
To use it for our traditional Halloween pumpkin stew, buy a pumpkin around 10-12 pounds, making sure it will fit in your oven and stand up securely on its own. Make the stew up until the point where you have let it simmer for an hour, right before you add the final ingredients. While the stew is simmering, preheat the oven to 325, clean the outside of the pumpkin, cut open the top at an angle so that you will be able to put the lid back on, and clean out the seeds and strings well. Place the pumpkin on a large rimmed baking sheet, and lightly oil the outside of the pumpkin. Once the stew is done simmering and the vegetables are fully cooked, spoon the stew into the pumpkin, leaving about an inch of space at the top. Put the lid back on the pumpkin, and bake it for 2 hours on 325. When it is done, take it out and add the peas and parsley if you wish. As you serve, you can scrape the sides of the pumpkin to add bits of the pumpkin flesh to the stew in the bowls.
A few notes:
- You may want to wrap foil around the stem if your pumpkin still has one while it bakes.
- I used regular large pumpkins from the grocery store, but most of those jackolantern pumpkins are not really known for their flavor. It was still good, but this time I used a peanut pumpkin which aren't as smooth and pretty but are known for having a good flavor, and it turned out well! Perhaps the knobs/warts on the outside (which I was told are a buildup of excess sugar) just make it look extra spooky, as it is Halloween after all!
- I have tried not fully simmering the stew beforehand, thinking it would finish cooking within the pumpkin as it would in a dutch oven, but I am assuming the walls of the pumpkin were so thick and it took so long for that to cook through that the vegetables in the stew never fully finished cooking. So take my advice and cook the stew fully first, but still keep it inside the pumpkin where it will stay warm and its juices will soak into the pumpkin and help it as it cooks.
- I usually make the stew the day beforehand, then warm it up fully on the stove before putting it inside the pumpkin and baking it. It makes it much simpler and easier the day of!
