Pille Petersoo shares ways to cook with different pumpkins

Food expert Pille Petersoo says pumpkin can be used in soup, pesto, cookies and salad. She shared tips and recipes on ERR’s “Terevisioon” programme.

Petersoo said her favourite is the Hokkaido pumpkin, which is a good size for her family of five. She roasts one whole pumpkin, using half for soup and some for pesto, cookies and salad. Hokkaido pumpkins do not need to be peeled before roasting.

She also described several varieties, including white acorn pumpkin, bowling pumpkin, muscat pumpkin and spaghetti squash. White acorn pumpkin has a flower-like pattern when cut across, she said, and is best roasted in the oven.

The bowling pumpkin is often mistaken for a bottle gourd, Petersoo said. Its seeds are concentrated in the lower part, making it suitable for roasting, and its flesh works well in soup.

Muscat pumpkins tend to have a stronger, distinctive flavour and sweeter, firmer flesh than common pumpkins. Spaghetti squash is another unusual variety: when cooked, its flesh can be pulled apart into strands.

Petersoo has made pumpkin cookies for years using pumpkin, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, raisins, baking powder and flour. The recipe does not include eggs. Roasted pumpkin can also be turned into pesto, and pumpkin purée can be frozen.