Stuffed Pumpkin

I am a big fan of both of Anthony Bourdain's television shows. The Travel Channel still shows reruns of No Reservations and his current show, Parts Unknown, is on CNN. The way they dig deep into different cultures around the world through food is fascinating to me. Both shows are this beautiful balance of people, food, drink, a little politics, a little history, and the occasional crass comment or observation from Anthony.  I will be honest, you will experience a lot more drinking and crass comments while watching No Reservations, but it seems the folks at CNN took something good, polished up a little, and made it their own with Parts Unknown.

Not too long ago I was watching the Lyon, France episode of Parts Unknown, where Anthony and chef Daniel Boulud visit various restaurants and chefs around Lyon. But what really caught my interest was when chef Daniel took Anthony to the home where he grew up, to have a meal with his parents. One of the dishes they cooked was a stuffed pumpkin roasted in a brick oven. They hollowed out a pumpkin and put stale bread, cheese, mushrooms, bacon, and cream in it, put the lid back on, and slid it into their wood-fired brick oven. I immediately thought about doing something similar in my cooker.

So off to the grocery I went. I picked up a pie pumpkin because of their thicker flesh and higher sugar content. Since I didn't have any stale bread, I went with a nice blend of wild and whole grain rice. I grabbed some mushrooms, a red bell pepper, a sweet onion, and some baby spinach.  I also got some sausage with sage, sharp cheddar cheese, and heavy cream.

Back home in the kitchen, I began by cutting open the pumpkin and hollowing it out. Keep the pumpkin lid because you will need it later! I then browned the sausage and cooked the rice until it was almost done, but not completely soft.  I diced the onion and bell pepper and threw them in a pan with the mushrooms and a little butter and let them just begin to get tender. I left the spinach raw.  In a bowl, I mixed the rice, sausage, and vegetables, threw in a handful of the cheddar cheese, and then stuffed it all into the pumpkin.

I headed out to the cooker and brought the temperature up to about 325 degrees with a chimney full of white-hot lump charcoal.  I also added two chunks of pecan wood for a little smoke.

Just before I put the pumpkin on, I poured about half a cup of the heavy cream into the stuffed pumpkin and put the pumpkin lid back on it.  I put it on and let it cook for about an hour with the lid on.  I then removed the pumpkin lid and let it cook for about forty-five minutes until the skin was easily pierced with a fork.  I then took it off and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

To serve, I sliced the pumpkin from the top down into four to six sections and laid each section on a plate, skin down.  The stuffing rests nicely on top of each section of pumpkin.