Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 348 kcal | 99 kcal |
| Protein | 8.6 g | 2.4 g |
| Fat | 13.9 g | 3.9 g |
| saturated | 2.3 g | 0.7 g |
| Carbohydrate | 53.3 g | 15.1 g |
| sugars | 25.5 g | 7.2 g |
| Fibre | 5.1 g | 1.5 g |
| Sodium | 835 mg | 237 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 2.1 kg large-size pumpkin, remove the seeds
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon agave
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon ginger
Instructions
- Separate the seeds from the stringy pulp in a bowl of water rather than picking at them. The seeds float and the fibres sink, and five minutes of this saves twenty minutes of scraping.
- Soak the clean seeds overnight. This is not about flavour — soaking softens the hull enough that the spice mixture can grip it, and an unsoaked seed sheds its coating on the tray.
- Drain them and dry them properly on paper towel before anything else touches them. Oil will not spread on a wet hull, and the seeds end up spotted rather than coated.
- Toss the seeds in the olive oil alone first, then add the agave, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Oil first gives the dry spices something to cling to; added all together they clump in the agave and settle on the bottom of the bowl.
- Spread the seeds one deep on lined trays and pull apart any that are stuck together. Two seeds glued by agave dry as one thick seed and stay soft where they meet.
- Dry at 66 °C for 21 hours, stirring them about a couple of times. This is a long run for something so small, and the hull is the reason: it is waterproof from the outside, so the moisture has to leave through the edges.
- Take a few out, let them cool, and bite one. A finished seed cracks and the kernel inside is dry and pale; if the kernel bends at all, the batch needs longer no matter how crisp the hulls feel.
- Cool them completely spread out, then jar them for two months, or keep them in the fridge beyond that. Pumpkin seed oil goes rancid faster than most, and the smell gives it away well before the taste does.
