Pumpkin Puree

Halloween is a festival full of fun, not that I know or have celebrated before but that's what I can see when watching movies about it. Children in creative costumes and 'trick or treat' activity, carving pumpkin into Jack 'O' Lantern, playing pranks and watching horror movies. So I'm celebrating this year virtually by cooking some Halloween dishes, let me start with Pumpkin Puree.

It's very easy to make Pumpkin Puree...most of us do it often for others dishes. I have cut one medium pumpkin into two and pressure cooked with 2 cups of water for 5 whistle. You don't have to remove the skin as once you pressure cook the pumpkin the skin will scald off. Drain and let it cool.

Let pumpkin cool down, then pulse it in blender without adding any water until you get smooth puree. You can freeze this puree until usage or make immediately for baking or cooking. It takes less than 30 minutes the whole preparation of this puree.

Very easy isn't it. Now our Pumpkin Puree is ready to be included in baking.

Mattan Eriserry/ Pumpkin Gravy

This is a must have dish for Onam, Mattan Eriserry. Mom makes this so perfectly it's so delicious and most importantly my brother's favorite since a small kiddo. My mom learnt this from my grandpa who hailed from Pattamby, Kerala. Mom said grandpa was a very good cook and he taught my grandma how to cook, grandma got married at the a very young age so she don't know how to cook.

This is a very simple and anyone can cook dish, let us see how to cook this my mom's style. This dish is prepared without garlic and onion.

Ingredients:

250g pumpkin chopped

1/2 cup dhall (soaked and drained)

1 tbsp chili paste

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 cup of grated coconut

1 tsp cumin seed

2 dry red chili

1 sprig curry leaf

1 tsp mustard seed

1tbsp oil

1 cup water

Salt to taste

Blend cumin seed and 1/2 cup of grated coconut into coarse paste with little water and keep aside.

In a pan, boil dhall, pumpkin, chili paste, turmeric powder and salt until pumpkin and dhall is cooked. Add coconut and cumin paste to pumpkin and let it simmer over a low flame.

For tempering, in another pan add oil, mustard seed, dry red chili and curry leaves until it crackle and add balance 1/2 cup of grated coconut until aromatic, do not burn the tempering. Add this to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

Our Mattan Eriserry is ready to be served. Do try and let me know how it turned out.