Home Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
It's Pumpkin Carving time! I've been told by several friends that they have trouble cooking
pumpkin seeds, so I thought I'd jot down my method for others to use. :) I do
have two disclaimers, I live at both high altitude, and in a VERY dry climate.
I don't know if either of those factors can effect something like this, but if
you don't achieve the results your hoping for, it may just require some
tweaking on the bake time and temp.
Ingredients:
Fresh Pumkin seeds, right out of the gourd.
Salt
2 bowls
Colander
Paper towels
Cookie Sheet
Oven
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
First off, getting the goo off the seeds can be a little
tricky. Cut open the pumpkin and take everything out into a medium bowl. Once
you have it all out where you can see it, separate the seeds from the threads
into the second bowl, by hand. (You can wear gloves if the texture bothers you.)
Once you have all the seeds in the 2nd bowl, there are still
usually threads of pumpkin and juice all over them. Fill the seed bowl
halfway with water, and rinse the seeds, sifting through the water to remove
the rest of the threads.
(by this point any pumpkin threads that you've missed really
won't harm the process)
Pour seeds into colander and drain, shaking to get as much
moisture off of them as possible.
Ready a layer of paper towels, then pour the seeds onto
them, pat the water off to get most of the drops. (The seeds will often stick to the
paper).
Transfer seeds to a cookie sheet, and remove them from the
paper towel if stuck. Spread them across the sheet evenly. They can still
touch, just try to smooth them out so
there aren't any stacked on top of each other.
Salt the seeds. You can use sea salt, or kosher salt, I just
use table salt. Be generous. For one, salt helps absorb the moisture and give
them a crisp outer shell, for two, it brings out the flavor. If you over-salt
you can usually just rub it off after they've cooked.
Slide the cookie sheet in and bake for 5-10 minutes. Look
for a dry, just barely golden color on the edges. The salt makes them pale, so you don't
want to wait for too much color change.
Pop them out, scrape them off the sheet with a spatula, and
eat as soon as they're cool!
Good luck! :)