On my last trip to visit my Austrian in-laws, we were lucky enough to get away for 4 days to Austrian wine country in South Styria. For those of you unfamiliar with that part of the world, it is south of Graz (where Arnold Schwarzenegger is from) and is close to the border with Slovenia (former Yugoslavia).
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One of the things this region is known for besides its fantastic wines (mostly white wines) is a type of Scarlet Runner Bean that the Austrians call “Kaeferbohnen,” and they are known for Pumpkin Seed Oil that comes from a specialty pumpkin known in Austria simply as “ölkürbis,” but it’s proper name is Cucurbita pepo styriaca.
Styrian Oil Pumpkin seeds are used to make what I consider to be one of the most flavorful (and healthy) oils in the world. It is used in Austria on salad, in soups, and for dishes. While passing through Leibnitz, we stopped at a local plant nursery & picked up some seeds so that I could grow this interesting pumpkin in the 2010 growing season here in N. California.
After getting the seeds last summer, I of course realized that growing a bunch of pumpkins is easy. The difficult part is figuring out how to make pumpkin seed oil, but I think I have found the information that I need to be successful with this project…or I’ve found just enough information to make this a time consuming disaster (you’re sitting on the edge of your seat now aren’t you?).
Here’s the basic process:
- Grow several pumpkins so that you have at least 3 kilos (6.6 lbs) of seeds.
- Harvest the seeds by hand (they even do it this way in Austria), wash them, and dry them well ( the pumpkins themselves can be composted since they aren’t considered a good eating squash).
- Put the seeds into the food processor using the pulse button VERY briefly to break up the seeds, but you want the seeds in small chunks, not completely ground up.
- Take the broken up seeds and roast them for about 5-7 minutes at 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This is important because it is a low enough temperature to ensure that you can still call the oil “cold pressed” and not change the flavor of the oil. It will also make it easier to get as much oil as possible from the seeds in the next step.
- Put the roasted seeds through an oil expeller. You don’t need a fancy expensive one with an electric motor. I’m going to get a hand crank one from a Dutch company called Piteba for about $150 USD.
- After making the oil, you need to let the oil settle so that the sediment falls to the bottom of your container (a day or two). Then you will be able to pour off the dark green oil into another container and not have any silt – just pure pumpkin seed oil.
Although I’ve found a couple of 30 second videos on YouTube done by Piteba showing how easy it is to make oil from a variety of seeds, the best video I’ve seen with this oil expeller was done by a couple in Montana making Hemp Seed Oil, so I’ve posted it here to give everyone an idea of how this thing works –
I’ll post an update in late 2010 about how this process goes and make a determination at that time if it was worth all of the effort. I’m hoping it will be!
