Oven squash on lemon yoghurt with hazelnuts and zhug
The cold season and pumpkin are an absolute dream team! Pumpkin as a soup, as a puree, from the oven or pan is simply always a very good idea. Did you know that pumpkin is also super popular in the Levant? There, for example, people love to make "pumpkin kibbeh". Kibbeh is a kind of meatball with bulgur - roughly speaking. But here we're talking about an oven-baked pumpkin on a bed of deliciously fresh lemon yoghurt with a variety of tasty toppings.
Pumpkin with a difference
Oven vegetables are a very fine thing. It's super tasty, very healthy and ready in no time. It often saves the day for me when I'm so incredibly hungry after a long day that I even wildly bite the people around me (I've done it before...).
And if I have to be really quick, I get really creative and like to throw things together. That's how this recipe came about, by the way. So when the time comes again, the recipe has to be made quickly - and it has to have that certain something extra. So I put the pumpkin on creamy yoghurt, which I have previously mixed with lemon zest. As a topping, I sprinkle freshly roasted hazelnuts, a few pomegranate seeds and a generous dollop of Zhug.
Beautifully spicy, but somehow still wonderfully mild
Zhug is a spicy chilli-coriander sauce that adds a lot of fire to the roasted pumpkin, but also brings many delicious flavours from the Levant. Don't worry: Zhug is really easy to make yourself and you can decide how hot you want it. In addition, the fresh yoghurt softens the spiciness considerably.
Together with the toppings, a small culinary journey is created that begins at home and ends in the Levant. You taste the earthy pumpkin, then the lemony yoghurt, then the crunchy hazelnuts that you have freshly roasted beforehand. And the sweet and sour pomegranate seeds surprise you as little explosions in your mouth. Sounds good, doesn't it?
I'm very sure you'll love this version of oven-roasted pumpkin as much as I do.
Recipe for oven squash on lemon yoghurt with hazelnuts and zhug
Ingredients
- 700 g Hokkaido pumpkin
- 50 g Hazelnuts
- 20 g Pomegranate seeds
- 3 TBSP Olive oil
- Salt
Lemon yoghurt
- 300 g Yogurt 10%
- 1 Lemon
- Salt
Preparation
Prepare the Zhug according to the recipe.
Pumpkin
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C convection oven.
- Wash the pumpkin, remove the seeds and cut into half moons.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and spread the pumpkin on it.
- Brush the pumpkin with a little olive oil and salt lightly.
- Roast the pumpkin in the oven for approx. 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, toast the hazelnuts on high heat in a non-stick pan for approx. 2 - 3 minutes. Put the hazelnuts directly into a bowl and crush as desired.
Yoghurt
- Wash the lemon, grate the zest and squeeze out one half.
- Mix yoghurt with lemon zest 1 tbsp lemon juice and season with salt.
Sideboards
- Spread the yoghurt on plates. Spread the pumpkin on top. Drizzle with a little olive oil.
- Garnish with crushed hazelnuts, zhug and pomegranate.
Notes
Be sure to try the fried vegetable makali. By the way, crispy falafel also go great with the oven squash.
Hello Rafik,
I'm going to make a modified version of this tonight, sounds super yummy! Instead of Zhug, there's a kind of parsley-mint pesto, as I'm too lazy to get coriander and I'm not allowed to spice things up here anyway 😉 I'm going to make it in a different form.
I was going to ask about the pumpkin kibbeh recipe though - will you put that up sometime?
Merci and best regards!
Hello Cedric,
thank you for your feedback 🙂
The recipe is definitely still on the to-do list 🙂
Kind regards
Rafik