Pumpkin and squash seeds

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
Staff member
Joined
19 Apr 2015
Local time
11:37 PM
Messages
46,855
Location
Maidstone, Kent, UK
Quite a few entries in the recent Recipe Challenge used pumpkin or squash seeds - roasted from scratch. I made @Herbie's lovely winning recipe Warm squash, red onion and brown lentil salad. But not for the first time I didn't succeed with cooking the seeds.

Is it to do with the type of squash or how old it is? This is what I end up with - maybe you can't see this from the photo but the outer casing on the seeds is really tough and there is nothing much inside. They are really inedible. What am I doing wrong?

20181029_114907.jpg
 
I've tried this before, without success. I think it must depend on the variety of pumpkin. The commercial varieties sold in supermarkets for making jack-o-lanterns seem to be grown for that purpose solely. They have precious little flesh relative to their size, and the seeds are unusable. The small pumpkins I bought for the pumpkin soup bowls had far more flesh and the seeds were different. All the pumpkin seeds I have bought are green. Maybe they are hulled?
 
I've tried this before, without success. I think it must depend on the variety of pumpkin. The commercial varieties sold in supermarkets for making jack-o-lanterns seem to be grown for that purpose solely. They have precious little flesh relative to their size, and the seeds are unusable. The small pumpkins I bought for the pumpkin soup bowls had far more flesh and the seeds were different. All the pumpkin seeds I have bought are green. Maybe they are hulled?

Yes - I agree re the jack-o-lanterns - but the squash I used for @Herbie's dish was a small round one a bit like the one you used for the soup. And I've had same issue with butternut squash which has lots of flesh on it.

Yes the seeds I have bought are always green - they must be hulled I suppose. I noticed @The Late Night Gourmet included squash seeds in a recipe entry. Perhaps he could comment on this?
 
Further research suggests that the type in packets are Syrian Pumpkin Seeds which grow without hulls:

Styrian_pumpkin_seeds_standard_350_grande.jpg

This is despite what the BBC website says which is that they are hulled!

Nevertheless there are countless recipes out there for roasting the seeds with the hull on them.
 
Further research suggests that the type in packets are Syrian Pumpkin Seeds which grow without hulls:

View attachment 20274

This is despite what the BBC website says which is that they are hulled!

Nevertheless there are countless recipes out there for roasting the seeds with the hull on them.
That's interesting. I have bought them green like that but also salted with hulls. The ones I toasted had hulls on but went crispy. I'm not going to be cooking for a few days but will post a recipe when I do.
 
I intend roasting/toasting/grilling a tablespoon's worth of pumpkin seeds - or graines de courge, to use a "foreign" term - in the next couple of days prior to inclusion in my 'winter bread'. I think spreading the seeds out on some aluminium foil on a baking tray and sticking them under the grill for a few minutes should suffice. An alternative would be dry roasting in an open pan over a gentle flame.

@Herbie - is that what you would do? Please advise - I don't want them exploding …
 
Yes the seeds I have bought are always green - they must be hulled I suppose. I noticed @The Late Night Gourmet included squash seeds in a recipe entry. Perhaps he could comment on this?
Are usually haven’t had any issue with taking the seeds – usually out of a pumpkin - spraying them with oil, and roasting them in the oven. However, I do know some people soak them in a brine for 24 hours to soften them up, and this yields excellent results.
 
I roasted a squash last night. So, the seeds...
I cleaned the seeds (pulled off the flesh). Put them in a bag with a drop of oil, salt and chilli powder. Shook the bag and tipped the seeds into an ovenproof dish big enough to spread out in a single layer. I roasted for 40 min at the bottom of the oven as I roasted veg above. Nice and crispy.

Photo to follow...
 
I don't understand this - my seeds were all hard shell with virtually nothing inside them - crunchy maybe but completely horrible in the mouth. On Saturday Kitchen best bites yesterday two different chefs made recipes featuring the seeds. One chef toasted them in oil in a frying pan and sprinkled them on pumpkin soup. The other clearly cheated and used seeds from a packet (which were typically green) on his squash dish.
 
@morning glory
I know it's an old thread ,but just like fruit, veg is often picked before it is completely ripe so that it doesn't decay as quickly , isn't as bruised and so on. The result is that the seeds which they don't want you to germinate anyway, are not ripe and ready . They won't flesh up anymore once picked so if picked when they are at a stage before they can germinate ,you'll never be able to eat them . Quite simply, they don't want you to . Home-grown is a different story completely, if you know when to pick them and I suspect that ones that have ripe seeds are either purchased from Asian or farm markets or a variety that they can't pick too early for transport because there simply won't be any flesh on them otherwise.
 
Back
Top Bottom