Stuffed pumpkin baked in the oven with meat and rice

We borrow an improvised pot from nature - stuffed pumpkin, baked in the oven with meat and rice, is edible from the inside to the very crust. Based on the well-known pilaf, we fill the voluminous space of the melon vegetable with the savory inside, steam it and bring it to the table in the same form.

If you are not a meat eater, stuff with vegetarian solutions with dried fruits, mushrooms, fresh apples, pears, cottage cheese, Sicilian caponata or other vegetable stews. The inside is important, it can be changed and seasoned with spices in different ways, but the highlight of the dish is the pumpkin container.

Examine the orange fruits; cut off the sloping, unbalanced ones from the bottom. For individual servings, choose small ones in diameter. Teardrop-shaped ones are often cut lengthwise; experiment with a specific variety. Consider the weight - stuffed pumpkin baked in the oven with meat and rice is heavy.

Ingredients

pumpkin 600 g
pork pulp 400 g
rice 200 g
onion 1 pc.
garlic 1-2 teeth.
chili 1-2 rings
vegetable oil 2-3 tbsp. l.
salt, pepper, bay leaf to taste
greens for serving

Manufacturing

For the inside, you can use any kind of rice; I have the most ordinary snow-white one. We rinse in several waters, to cook faster, leave in a bowl with cool water for 30 minutes or longer. The swollen one quickly softens and is suitable for porridges, broths, soups and side dishes. I prefer to boil the rice until cooked and combine it with other products in an edible state, load the pumpkins inside and additionally steam them in the oven. But you can throw the rice raw or half-cooked, fill the pumpkin about two-thirds full, add boiling water/broth in parts and wait for it to swell. The second method will take more time, because a pumpkin is not a clay pot or cauldron with a lid, and the grains soften more slowly in its walls.

So, cook the rice in the usual way, in boiling water, and then rinse it.

Wash the meat, dry it and cut it into small (or larger, if desired) cubes of approximately the same size. There can be different types of meat, chicken, turkey, bunny, whatever you like and have. Separate the fillet from the bone, hard film, and very fatty areas. I cook from pork cuts - always juicy, fragrant, meaty, not very fatty and easy to cut. There is no illiquid stock left, you just need to cut it up and put everything into action.

Like rice, we process the meat twice - first on top heat, then in the entrails, baking. Heat a wide frying pan to fit more at once. Pour in the lean refined oil, after half a minute add the pork pieces. Fry in crackling fat for a few minutes, add chopped chili, garlic and onions. Mix. Often meat juice is released, let it evaporate. Then you can fry it until deeply golden brown, or you can just dry it slightly. But do not fry for too long, the meat inside will become hard and lose water and tenderness.

We divide a clean pumpkin so as to preserve the top “hat” and the bulky lower part for minced meat, remove the hard skin from the intermediate part. Chop the pulp quite coarsely. We send the pumpkin tenderloin to the fried meat and, after stirring, continue to keep on the stove for another 5 minutes. The pumpkin will be soaked in fragrant fat and it will taste better in the dish.

We transfer the washed boiled rice to the fried assortment, season with salt and pepper. Stir and be sure to try. The insides for stuffing are at hand. If you need spices with a strong scent, use them. My interior kit is basic and small. Only rice, pumpkin, pork, onion, garlic, hot pepper. If you wish, complicate the variation of pilaf. To the listed composition add mushrooms, dried fruits, barberries. If you don't use white rice, replace it with other grains. From time to time it is stewed with buckwheat, millet, pearl barley, and bulgur.

Let's return to the pumpkin, here are containers for baking and serving. We do not damage the lower volumetric part, we take care of the shell. From the inside we take out the thread-like fibers with seeds. If you see that the cavity is small and you can’t physically fit a lot of the inside, scrape the flesh. The thickness of the walls, half a centimeter, is completely sufficient: strong, withstands long baking and the greater weight of the interior.

We tamp the “minced meat” and fill the pumpkin to the top. Use a spoon, with its help you can comfortably reach the convex areas and tightly arrange the inside mixture. Stick in a bay leaf and pour in boiling water (or boiled meat broth). The size of the water is small, how much will fit. You just need to simmer the pulp on the walls and combine all the smells.

We transfer it to a suitable fireproof tray, cover it with a “hat” and put it in a hot oven for 30-40 minutes (temperature 180 degrees). The stuffed pumpkin is charred from time to time - faster, for decorative purposes.

Serve stuffed pumpkin baked in the oven with meat and rice, garnished with fresh herbs. Nourishing, wonderful and tasty!

Stuffed pumpkin with rice and dried fruits

Ingredients

Rice – 0.5 cups

Water – 0.5 cups

Prunes – 5 pcs.

Walnuts – 1 tbsp.

Spices – 0.5 tsp.

Butter – 50 g

103 kcal
3 hours
3 hours

Photo of the finished dish

Video recipe: Stuffed pumpkin with rice and dried fruits

Step-by-step recipe with photos and videos

Let's prepare the necessary ingredients for making stuffed pumpkin with rice and dried fruits. Their number in the future will depend on the size of the pumpkin. Therefore, until you cut it up and see what the internal volume is for the inside, it is difficult to literally find the amount of ingredients suitable for it.

So, carefully wash the pumpkin, trim the bottom so that it stands stable, and cut off the cap. We clean the pumpkin from the insides: fibers and seeds. The stuffing preparation is ready.

Let's get to the insides. For a one-kilogram pumpkin with a small internal volume, I took half a glass of dry rice. We wash the cereal, fill it with cool water in a 1:1 ratio and boil until the water is absorbed and a semi-finished porridge is obtained.

Soak dried fruits in cool water for half an hour. After that we dry it on a towel.

Cut dried apricots and prunes into small pieces.

Add to the rice a pinch of salt, dried fruits, walnuts (I used small ones, break them directly with your hands or chop them with a knife as needed), honey (if it’s thick, melt a little) and spices to taste (I use a mixture: cinnamon, coriander, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, ginger).

Pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables

Pumpkin is a very tasty fruit that can be mixed with almost all vegetables, cereals, legumes and meat. It is peeled from the thick bark, cut into pieces, fried, stewed or baked with other products. Dishes made from a whole baked pumpkin stuffed with various innards are very exciting. The entrails can be minced meat with boiled cereals, pieces of meat with juicy vegetables, or just cereals with vegetables. Mini pumpkins are superbly tasty and very beautiful when stuffed with boiled rice, zucchini, carrots with the addition of sour cream and dried basil. The dish is unsurpassed for proper nutrition.

Pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables

Servings: 2.
Making time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

• pumpkin (small) – 2 pieces;

• zucchini (large) – 4 circles;

• carrots (smaller than average) – 1 piece;

• rice (long grain) – 4 tablespoons;

• sour cream – 2 tablespoons;

• dried basil – 2 pinches;

Manufacturing:

1. Pour the washed rice with a large amount of water and boil, stirring, until half cooked. Rinse and drain in a colander.

2. Cut the zucchini slices and peeled carrots into small cubes. Vegetables must be finely chopped, otherwise they will not have time to cook. Turn on the oven at 200 degrees.

3. Add rice to the prepared vegetable cubes.

4. Add sour cream, salt, dried basil and ground pepper to the pumpkin filling. Mix. Dried basil will add a cool smell to the insides.

5. Wash the small pumpkins and dry them with a towel. They should weigh no more than 500 grams.

6. Cut off the tops of the pumpkin and get small lids.

7. Clear the caps of seeds. We cut the inner parts of the pumpkins, remove the seeds with a teaspoon and cut off a little of the pulp along the edges. So, the pumpkin comes out with a similar width of the walls. Preparation of goods is completed.

8. Fill the pumpkins with the prepared fragrant inside, leaving some space on top. Vegetables will release juice when roasting and you need a small space to prevent it from leaking out.

Tips for making:

• The dish will become lean if you replace the sour cream with a small amount of vegetable oil.

• The inside will become even more aromatic if it is supplemented with dill, parsley or green onions.

• To add Indian notes to the dish, add curry or turmeric to the filling.

• The mixture of rice and vegetables will become a beautiful bright color if you add sweet paprika (1 tsp).

• To add more creamy flavor to the dish, 10 minutes before cooking, sprinkle grated hard cheese on top of the filling.

• Using this principle, pumpkin can be prepared with boiled pearl barley, buckwheat or millet.

• To contrast the dish, boiled rice can be supplemented with other vegetables. Onions, broccoli, leeks, tomatoes, white cabbage or cauliflower are excellent. Vegetables can be fried in a frying pan ahead of time.

We really hope that you liked our step-by-step master class with photos and that the pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables will amuse you with its smell and taste.

Pumpkin stuffed with rice

A tasty, healthy and wonderful dish - pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables. The quantity and composition of vegetables can be varied according to your own taste. It is better to use a small decorative pumpkin - it will bake faster, and it will also be more convenient to serve the dish to the table.

Ingredients:

1 small pumpkin;
½ small eggplant;
1 sweet pepper;
2 small tomatoes;
½ cup of rice;
1 cup of hot water;
1 teaspoon salt;
spices to taste (I used ¾ teaspoon “Curry”);
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

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Pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables, how to cook:

1. Prepare the vegetables. Cut the eggplant into small cubes, peppers and tomatoes into slices.

2. Heat a little vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the vegetables with spices.

3. Wash the rice and add it to the pan with the vegetables.

4. Stir rice with vegetables, add a cup of hot water and add salt.

5. Cover the pan with a lid and reduce heat to low. Simmer everything together for 20 minutes until the rice absorbs all the water.

6. Cut the cap off the pumpkin and remove the seeds from the core. It is convenient to create this using a tablespoon.

7. Fill the inside of the pumpkin, maybe with a small heap.

8. Bake the pumpkin at 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes until done. If the inside burns on top, you can cover the pumpkin with foil or lower it to a lower level.

That's all! Our pumpkin stuffed with rice and vegetables is ready. Bon appetit!