A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Guy Fawkes night with friends, who kindly hosted us and filled our bellies with all kinds of delicious foods. One of the snacks they provided were home-roasted pumpkin seeds, and oh my, I loved them. So I decided to give it a go myself. I was reliably informed by our hostess that the trick is to soak the seeds in heavily salted water for a good few hours before roasting, otherwise they just don't taste as good.
I rinsed the seeds through a sieve and separated the pulp, then filled the bowl with water. I then added about half a cup of salt (I just poured an approximate amount in), and thought that it probably would have made far more sense to mix the salt in
before adding the seeds, but there was no going back, so I just enjoyed the swirling patterns of the seeds as I mixed the salt in.
After soaking for about 8 hours (they probably don't need this long, but it's quite convenient to do them overnight), I drained off the water and patted the seeds dry with kitchen towel. Then I dredged them in lots of black ground pepper, a little olive oil and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, before baking for 30 minutes at 200C / Gas Mark 5 / 350F. You can season these with anything you want - the first time we had them, they were just seasoned with the salt they had soaked in, and were delicious, or you could throw in some chilli powder to give them a good kick of heat.
Ours had a little too long in the oven, so some of the seeds were a bit well done, but I still devoured them, and found myself wishing that I had another pumpkin so I could make these again.
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