Butternut Pumpkin - Half

Butternut pumpkins are pear-shaped with golden brown skin and a dense, dry, sweet-tasting flesh.
Their name comes from Charles Leggett, an amateur breeder from Massachusetts, USA, who described them as ‘smooth as butter, sweet as a nut’. Pumpkins are 90% water. The bigger the pumpkin the higher the water content, so pumpkins grown for their size are usually not the best-tasting.

Pumpkin is extremely versatile – it can be used in sweet and savoury dishes and can be steamed, mashed, sautéed, baked or fried. Butternut pumpkin is classified as a fruit and not a vegetable. All parts of the pumpkin are edible, and the brightly coloured yellow flesh means a sweet taste.

Cut pumpkin should be wrapped in plastic, stored in the fridge and used within five days.

Fun Fact: Pumpkin seeds first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. Pumpkins were to be grown as fodder for livestock, but the early settlers ended up relying on them for food.