Name: Pork with Mashed Pumpkin (Puerco con Calabaza)
Yield: Makes 4–6 servings
Cuisine: Spanish
Ingredients: 2 medium-sized ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped; 4–5 árbol or dried serrano chiles; 2 small onions, 1 unpeeled; 4 garlic cloves, 2 unpeeled; 1 2½-to-3- pound pumpkin or winter squash, or a chunk of the same size cut from a West Indian squash, unpeeled; 2 pounds boneless pork butt, cut into 1–inch chunks; 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste; 3 tablespoons lard, preferably home-rendered, or vegetable oil; 2 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1 teaspoon black peppercorns; ¾ teaspoon coriander seeds; ¾ teaspoon cumin seeds; ¼ cup pumpkin seeds

Preparation info

Makes
4–6
servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Zarela's Veracruz

By Zarela Martínez

Published 2001

About

Pumpkin-meat combinations are a hallmark of the Afro-Caribbean heritage in Veracruz. This tradition is still being superbly upheld by Santiago Careaga and his wife, Elena Gutiérrez, at Santiago’s Club in Tamiahua, where I tasted this dish with its unexpected North African accents of cumin and coriander seeds. Not surprisingly, their daughter, Dora Elena Careaga Gutiérrez, is a noted expert on African culinary contributions in Veracruz and co-author (with Raquel Torres) of an excellent recip