Serves 4
- 4 small pumpkins or squashes (e.g. Hokkaido, butternut, sweet dumpling)
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 pomegranate
- 1 red onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. allspice
- 1 tsp. ginger (freshly grated)
- 400 g ground venison
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 50 g couscous
- ½ bunch of coriander
- 200 g Greek-style yogurt
- 2 tbsp. pine nuts
- Salt
- Pepper
Preheat oven to 180 °C (250 °F). Place baking parchment on a baking sheet. Wash the pumpkins. Cut out a “lid” around the stem, and remove seeds with a spoon. Brush the bottoms of the pumpkins with 2 tbsp. olive oil and place on the baking sheet. Bake in the hot oven for approx. 20 minutes.
Cut the pomegranate in half. Squeeze the juice from one half, pour through a sieve, and set aside. Remove the seeds from the other half and set them aside. For the filling, peel and finely dice the onion and garlic. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a pan and sauté the onion cubes until translucent. Add the garlic, cumin, cinnamon, allspice and ginger to the pan and fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the ground venison and fry on all sides until crumbly. Stir in the tomatoes and 2 tbsp. of pomegranate juice and simmer for approx. 5 minutes.
Remove the pumpkins from the oven and scrape some of the flesh out the pumpkin halves, leaving approx. 1 cm. Chop the pumpkin flesh, add it to the ground venison mixture, and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Chop the coriander and stir in. Spoon the filling into the pumpkins, cover with aluminum foil and cook in the hot oven for approx. 20 minutes. Then remove the aluminum foil and bake for another 10 minutes.
In the meantime, toast the pine nuts. Mix the yogurt with the remaining pomegranate juice. Season with a little salt and pepper. Remove the pumpkins from the oven and decorate with the yogurt, pomegranate seeds, and pine nuts.
