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#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with t ...

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, and ...

(

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 R ...

), 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 ...

, Orăștie-Cugir region of

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, north western

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(esp. Međimurje),

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, and adjacent regions of

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. It is also used worldwide, including North America,

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 Guate ...

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 ...

and China. 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. 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 ''Extracted'', also known as ''Extraction'' in the UK, is an independent 2012 American science fiction thriller directed and written by Nir Paniry. Sasha Roiz stars as a scientist whose consciousness becomes trapped in the mind of a convict (Dom ...

by solvent extraction or by supercritical carbon dioxide methods. Once the oil is obtained, further specific extractions may be done, such as for

carotenoid Carotenoids (), also called tetraterpenoids, are yellow, orange, and red organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, and fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, cor ...

s. 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 caramelizati ...

hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

-less pumpkin seeds 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 u ...

, the "Styrian oil pumpkin" ('' Cucurbita pepo'' 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 is -44. When used together with yoghurt, 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 num ...

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