Salmon and Fennel Cooked in a Pumpkin

Name: Salmon and Fennel Cooked in a Pumpkin
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients: 6 cloves garlic; 6 cardamom pods; 2 teaspoons fennel seeds; 300 ml/½ pint milk; 2 fresh green chillies; juice and finely grated rind of 1 lemon; 7.5 cm/3 in piece fresh ginger; 900 g/2 lb skinned salmon fillet; sea salt; 2 medium bulbs fennel; 675 g/1½ lb onions; a little sunflower oil; 100 g/4 oz butter; 50 g/2 oz plain flour; 1 large pumpkin, about 3.25-3.5 kg/7½-8 lb

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Josceline Dimbleby’s Complete Cookbook

By Josceline Dimbleby

Published 1997

About

I love using pumpkins as a cooking pot. People are always staggered when I put the whole pumpkin on the table, take off the top and reveal the steaming, aromatic contents. Choose an evenly round pumpkin which stands steadily on its base.

Ingredients

7.5 cm/3 in piece fresh ginger
6 cloves garlic

Starter
Fish course
Pescatarian

Method

Peel the ginger and garlic and cut into thin slices. Extract the seeds from the cardamom pods and put with the fennel seeds into a wiped-out coffee grinder or a pestle and mortar. Grind fairly finely. Cut open the chillies under running water, discard the seeds and stem and chop the flesh finely. Cut the salmon into 2.5-5cm/1-2in chunks. Cut off the base of the fennel bulbs, remove any marked o