Pumpkin seed oil is a culinary oil, used especially in central Europe.

Culinary uses

This oil is a culinary specialty from what used to be part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

and is now southeastern

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

(

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...

), eastern

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

(

and

Prekmurje Prekmurje (; dialectically: ''Prèkmürsko'' or ''Prèkmüre''; hu, Muravidék) is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region of Slovenia, settled by Slovenes and a Hungarian minority, lying between the Mur Ri ...

), Central

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

, Orăștie-Cugir region of

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, north western

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

(esp. Međimurje),

Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...

, and adjacent regions of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. It is also used worldwide, including

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Pumpkin seed oil has an intense nutty taste and is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Browned oil has a bitter taste. Pumpkin seed oil serves as a

salad dressing A salad dressing is a sauce for salads. Used on virtually all '' leafy salads'', dressings may also be used in making salads of beans (such as three bean salad), noodle or pasta salads and antipasti, and forms of potato salad. Salad dressings ...

. The typical Styrian dressing consists of pumpkin seed oil and cider vinegar. The oil is also used for desserts, giving ordinary vanilla ice cream a nutty taste. It is considered a delicacy in Austria and Slovenia, and a few drops are added to pumpkin soup and other local dishes. Using it as a cooking oil, however, destroys its essential fatty acids.

Production

Oil from pumpkin seeds is extracted by

solvent extraction A solvent (s) (from the Latin '' solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. Water is a solvent for ...

or by supercritical carbon dioxide methods. Once the oil is obtained, further specific extractions may be done, such as for carotenoids. Styrian oil – an export commodity of Austria and Slovenia – is made by pressing

roasted Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelizatio ...

, hull-less

pumpkin seeds A pumpkin seed, also known in North America as a pepita (from the Mexican es, pepita de calabaza, "little seed of squash"), is the edible seed of a pumpkin or certain other cultivars of squash. The seeds are typically flat and asymmetrically ...

from a local variety of

pumpkin A pumpkin is a vernacular term for mature winter squash of species and varieties in the genus ''Cucurbita'' that has culinary and cultural significance but no agreed upon botanical or scientific meaning. The term ''pumpkin'' is sometimes use ...

, the "Styrian oil pumpkin" (''

Cucurbita pepo ''Cucurbita pepo'' is a cultivated plant of the genus ''Cucurbita''. It yields varieties of winter squash and pumpkin, but the most widespread varieties belong to the subspecies ''Cucurbita pepo'' subsp. ''pepo'', called summer squash. It has b ...

'' subsp. ''pepo'' var. 'styriaca', also known as var. ''oleifera''). High-temperature roasting improves the aromatic quality of pumpkin seed oil.

Seed types and oil

The viscous oil is light to very dark green to dark red in colour depending on the thickness of the observed sample. The oil appears green in thin layers and red in thick layers, an optical phenomenon called

dichromatism Dichromatism (or polychromatism) is a phenomenon where a material or solution's hue is dependent on both the concentration of the absorbing substance and the depth or thickness of the medium traversed. In most substances which are not dichromatic, ...

. Pumpkin oil is one of the substances with the strongest dichromatism. Its

Kreft's dichromaticity index Kreft's dichromaticity index (DI) is a measure for quantification of dichromatism. It is defined as the difference in hue angle (Δhab) between the color of the sample at the dilution, where the chroma (color saturation) is maximal, and the color ...

is -44. When used together with

yoghurt Yogurt (; , from tr, yoğurt, also spelled yoghurt, yogourt or yoghourt) is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as ''yogurt cultures''. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bact ...

, the oil turns bright green and is sometimes referred to as "green-gold". Other types of pumpkin seed oil are also marketed worldwide. International producers use white seeds with shells and this produces a cheaper white oil. New producers of seeds are located in China. An analysis of the oil extracted from the seeds of each of twelve cultivars of '' C. maxima'', related, yet different pumpkin species, yielded the following ranges for the percentage of several fatty acids: Note: The data are found in Table 3 on page 4010 The sum of myristic and palmitic acid content ranged from 12.8 to 18.7%. The total unsaturated acid content ranged from 73.1 to 80.5%. The very long chain fatty acid (> 18 carbon atoms) content ranged from 0.44 to 1.37%. The oil is localised in the small lipid droplets in the

cotyledon A cotyledon (; ; ; , gen. (), ) is a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant, and is defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first to appear from a germinating seed." The numb ...

cells.Kreft, M., Zorec, R., Janeš, D., Kreft, S. (2009). Histolocalisation of the oil and pigments in the pumpkin seed. Annals of Applied Biology, 154:413–418

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pumpkin Seed Oil Cooking oils Vegetable oils Squash and pumpkin dishes

Culinary uses

Production

Seed types and oil

See also

References