Pumpkin seed
Cucurbita pepo · Seed
Top 10 pairings
Pumpkin seeds, sold most often as pepitas, are the flat, oval seeds of pumpkins and other squashes (Cucurbita pepo and relatives) — usually shelled to reveal the slim, flat-green kernel and lightly toasted. Sweetly nutty and earthy with a tender-crisp snap, they are eaten by the handful, scattered over salads, granola and breads, and ground into the velvety green pumpkin-seed sauces of Mexican cooking, pipián and mole verde.
Picking a good onedrag
Plump green kernels, clean and faintly nuttyDull, bendy, smells of crayon
Pantry pepitasEveryday bestToast and scatter over salads, granola, soup and breads. Oil-roasted salted pepitas are this same seed, only louder.
Look at the kernelsMostly whole, a few broken halves and some dust
Smell a handfulFainter, still clean, the green edge gone quiet
Bite one, then dig a hand inSnaps, a little softer at the centre
Whole seed, ground or oilWhole kernels from a bin that turns over quickly