Boil or Preserve Pumpkin: Instructions

Prepare canning jars for the pumpkin

Whether the pumpkins can be preserved or not depends to a large extent on the preserving jars.

1. Therefore, first check the lenses for any damage, paying particular attention to the closure. You can only use jars that are 100% airtight when preserving. If there are some porous preserving rings among them, it is better to sort them out.
2. Before you use the jars for preserving, rinse them in the dishwasher again at the highest temperature level. Alternatively, fill the mason jars and lids with boiling hot water.
3. Place the preserving rings in boiling water for a few minutes and add a dash of vinegar. Then rinse the preserving rings and place them in clear, hot water.

Boil pumpkin – the first steps

To boil around four kilograms of pumpkin fruit, you need one liter of white wine vinegar, six cloves, the juice of three lemons, six cinnamon sticks, and one kilogram of sugar. Of course, you can refine the brew with other spices, such as bay leaves, ginger, onions, mustard seeds, dill seeds, or horseradish, depending on your taste. In addition, you usually need six jars.

• To make the brew, put two liters of water, the white wine vinegar, the sugar, the cloves, and the lemon juice in a saucepan and mix the ingredients over moderate heat.
• Then separate the pumpkin skin and cut the pumpkin in half. If you use a type of squash, such as the Hokkaido squash, whose skin is edible, you can use the skin as well.
• In addition to removing the pumpkin seeds, you also remove the soft fibers from the pulp. Incidentally, you can reuse the seeds, for example by roasting the pumpkin seeds.
• Cut the flesh into small cubes, which you fill with a cinnamon stick into the preserving jars provided. Leave a border of about three centimeters per glass.
• Then remove the cloves from the broth and divide them into the glasses before pouring the broth over the pumpkin cubes.

Cooking the pumpkins

After you have sealed the preserving jars well, place the jars in the preserving machine.

• Fill the preserving machine with as much water as the jars are too high. If you stack jars on top of each other, it doesn’t matter if the bottom mason jars are in the water, but there must still be enough space at the top for the bubbling water. Also, note the special instructions for your preserving machine.
• After 30 minutes at 90 degrees in the preserving machine, remove the jars with the pumpkin.
• Cover the jars with a kitchen towel while they cool in a draft-free place.
• If you don’t have a preserving machine, cook the pumpkin in the oven. However, the sensitive rubber rings can easily be damaged in the oven.
• Preheat the oven to 90 degrees and fill a high roasting pan with about two centimeters of hot water before placing the jars on it.
• The preserving jars remain in the oven at 90 degrees for 30 minutes.

How to make pumpkin puree

Another way to preserve the pumpkin is as a puree or mush.

• First, cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and soft fibers.
• Then preheat the oven to 100 degrees and leave the two pumpkin halves in the oven for about 15 minutes.
• Do not remove the pumpkin halves from the oven until the flesh has become floury and soft.
• After removing the flesh from the pumpkin halves, puree it.
• Finally, fill the pumpkin puree into the mason jars and cook the puree.
• Tip: Would you like a little more variety? We have prepared a recipe for a fiery pumpkin chutney for you!