According to U.S. federal agriculture statistics, Illinois is the country’s largest producer of pumpkins, with 14,800 acres devoted to the crop in 2007, most of them within a 90-mile radius of downstate Peoria. This bit of good news for locavores made me wonder what local chefs are doing with pumpkin. Mon Ami Gabi’s Pumpkin Festival ended on October 29, but there are still many seasonal savories on offer in addition to the ubiquitous pumpkin creme brulees, cheesecakes, cupcakes, and other sweets—not to mention cocktails with names like the Smashing Pumpkin.
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The five-course pumpkin dinner ($42) available through November 2 at Va Pensiero (1566 Oak, Evanston, 847-475-7779) includes several prime examples. Chef-owner Jeff Muldrow’s feast starts with warm pumpkin salad featuring oblong pie pumpkins from the Sustainable Greens Farms in Three Rivers, Michigan. Seeded, skinned, sliced, and dusted with cinnamon and cumin, the flesh is roasted, then tossed with frisee, piled atop polenta crostini, and dressed with sherry vinegar and olive oil pureed with toasted pumpkin seeds. Smaller, rounder pumpkins, roasted and finely diced, go into risotto with calamari and manila clams, crispy shallots, and tarragon. A pasta dish—pumpkin gnocchi with Gorgonzola cream and crispy battered fried sage—combines mashed pumpkin with Idaho and Yukon Gold potatoes. “Pumpkin and Gorgonzola just scream autumn,” Muldrow says. To complement grilled balsamic-marinated venison with black currant sauce, the chef makes a spiced relish of diced raw pumpkin sauteed with onions, garlic, hot pepper, and a little ground fennel seed, though he admits he’ll use firmer red kuri squash if it’s available. Dessert is a butternut squash rice pudding with candied ginger, almond tuile, and raspberries.
Pumpkin ravioli is practically as common as pumpkin pie, but the cappellacci di zucca ($14) at Piccolo Sogno (464 N. Halsted, 312-421-0077) is special. Chef and co-owner Tony Priolo uses four or five different kinds of pumpkin—among them kabocha, Long of Naples, and delicata—from Green Acre Farms in Indiana. Roasted and pureed, the flesh is blended with crumbled amaretto cookies, mostarda di cremona (mixed fruit candied in mustard syrup), nutmeg, cinnamon, a little Parmesan, and ricotta, then stuffed into pasta shaped like a priest’s hat, briefly boiled, and simply sauced with brown butter, sage, and walnuts. Priolo says the recipe is a classic from Emilia-Romagna.
Share your own pumpkin recipes with other readers this week at our blog the Food Chain.
