Serious Eats: Recipes
How to Roast Perfect Pumpkin Seeds
Photograph by Wyscan on Flickr
When I was young, and my dad and I would come back from the country weighed down with enough pumpkins to keep our New York apartment in a crowd of jack-o'-lanterns plus some, I used to wake up in the middle of the night. No, one of the frightening, candlelight-backlit ghoulish orange faces was not haunting my nightmares; I woke up because I heard sounds from the kitchen.
Great thumps and thuds, a raucous clatter of bangs, the occasional crash. In my pajamas, I would wander barefoot through the cold rooms, and peer around the corner. My mother stood there, stripping down the pumpkins of their seeds and flesh, wielding a knife with murderous dexterity. Eventually, she would spot me, and for hours I would watch her make pies as we ate her homemade pumpkin cheesecake.
At the end of the night, she would roast all the pumpkin seeds she had accumulated from the guts of the pumpkins through the dark hours, and we would sit together on the couch, under a blanket, and eat the salt after all that sweet, watching reruns. Many of you have been asking how to roast the perfect pumpkin seed. Now you know.
Photograph by gotbrimmed on Flickr
Perfect Roasted Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
Ingredients
The seeds from 1 jack-o'-lantern-sized pumpkin (about 1 to 1 1/4 cups), cleaned, rinsed, and dried
1 1/2 teaspoons light olive oil
dab of unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
2. Toss the pumpkin seeds with the olive oil. spread on a nonstick baking sheet, and roast for 12 to 14 minutes.
3. Toss the hot seeds with a dab of butter and the salt, stirring to coat, and then allow to cool.
Related
Bobby Flay's Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
Hilda's Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Michael Chiarello's Toasted Pumpkin Seeds