Shelled Pumpkin Seeds, Pepitas (Tokhm-e-Kadu)

These are the flat green kernels from inside a pumpkin seed, mild and faintly grassy with a nutty finish and a clean snap when you bite one. They sit close to a sunflower seed in flavour but rounder and less sweet, and they are the same green seed you see scattered over a bakery loaf or floated on a bowl of soup.

The husk is the difference: it has already been taken off, so what you get is bare green kernels with nothing to crack and nothing to spit out. That makes them usable straight from the bag in cooking and baking, unlike the white in shell seeds that are sold as a cracking snack.

How to use them

Toast them and scatter over Kabuli pulao, qabili, salads, soups and yogurt, or stir them through granola, seed bars and rustic bread dough. In Mexican cooking they are ground into pipian and mole verde, and they stand in well for pine nuts in a pesto or for peanuts in a chutney. Technique tip: dry toast them in a pan until they start to pop and puff, roughly two minutes, then tip them straight out of the pan, they scorch quickly after that.

Details

Also known as

Pepitas, Tokhm-e-kadu, Pumpkin kernels, Green pumpkin seeds, Shelled pumpkin seeds, Squash seeds, Kaddu ke beej, Semillas de calabaza