Skip to main content
Epicurious

Pickled Pumpkin Balls

5.0

(3)

A serving dish with pickle pumpkin balls.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Prop Styling by Anne Eastman, Food Styling by Rebecca Jurkevich

Like many Gourmet recipes of the ’70s (including this Two Potato Sauté), this recipe from the magazine’s 1978 November issue makes clever use of a melon baller. In this case, the tool is used to carve the flesh of a pumpkin into perfectly uniform, snack-size spheres. These spheres cook quickly in a vinegar-spiked syrup full of cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, candying and pickling them in one fell swoop.

Think of these pickled pumpkin balls almost like an autumnal chowchow—a sweet, tangy condiment to go with all of the savory, meaty, roasted flavors on your Thanksgiving dinner table. These can be made a week in advance, which means that you can get all of your prepping and pumpkin-scooping out of the way the weekend before the holiday.

See Related Recipes and Cooking Tips

Read More
Passion Fruit Curd
Tangy and sunny, this curd can be made with either fresh or frozen pulp.
Grape Dumplings
Native American people made these with cornmeal dumplings, simmering them with wild grapes, which were harvested at their peak sweetness.
XO Sauce
Developed in the 1980s by a chef in Hong Kong, this sauce is all about umami.
Charred Vegetable Ragù
This sauce is slightly magical. The texture cloaks pasta much like a traditional meat sauce does, and the flavors are deep and rich, but it’s actually vegan!
Homemade Whipped Cream
Fluffier, fresher, and fancier than anything from a tub or can.
Dulce de Leche
Make this versatile caramel at home with our slow-simmered method using milk and sugar—or take one of two sweetened condensed milk shortcuts.
Brussels Sprouts Latkes
Who says latkes have to be potato? Brussels bring a delicious cruciferousness.
Jammy Grape Galette
We don’t bake with grapes as often as we should. But even the most average supermarket varieties come alive when roasted with a bit of sugar and seasoning.