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Brazilian shrimp stuffed pumpkin (Camarão na Moraga) is the perfect dish to serve at any fall dinner party!
Before starting this blog, Brazilian food meant one thing to me.
Meat.
Generous quantities of delicious, juicy grilled meat coming out of those big skewers onto my plate.
Especially beef. Yes, more beef, please!
Today, I want to share with you this amazing traditional Brazilian food recipe – Shrimp (Prawn) stuffed pumpkin, that Brazilians enjoy all year round!
Delicious, moist baked pumpkin filled with sautéed shrimp (prawn), onion, garlic, and fresh tomatoes!
I am going to tell you a little secret 🙂
I knew from my first bite that this dish will be on my Thanksgiving table! Lucky me, my guests are not reading my blog…hopefully 🙂 and the surprise will not be ruined. It is such a perfect dish to serve at any fall dinner party!
The traditional recipe uses a Brazilian ingredient requeijao, a loose, creamy cheese to be spread inside the scooped pumpkin prior to filling it with the seafood stew. In Brazil, they use Catupiry, but here, in US it is quite difficult to find it.
Don’t worry! I have used cream cheese as a substitute and it turned out perfect!
This Brazilian Shrimp (Prawn) stuffed pumpkin is really easy to make. Serve it over rice, trying to scoop out some moist pumpkin flesh too.
Give it a try! You are going to love it!
- 1 medium pumpkin
- 4 tablespoons olive oil divided
- 1 pound wild caught large shrimp prawn, cleaned and deveined
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 1 jalapeño pepper chopped
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 4 large ripe tomatoes chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro finely chopped
- 1 cup cream cheese
- salt and pepper
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Preheat oven to 350F/ 180C.
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Wash the pumpkin and cut off the top. Scoop out the flesh and remove all seeds. Wrap it in aluminum foil and place it onto a baking tray, cut-off side down. Bake for about 40-50 minutes, until it is nearly soft. Remove it from the oven and unwrap from alluminium foil. Set aside.
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In a large pan, heat olive oil on medium heat. Sauté the onion for 2-3 minutes, until golden. Add garlic, chopped jalapeño and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add shrimp to the pan and continue cooking for another minute. Add chopped fresh tomatoes, season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are soft, for approximately 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add fresh cilantro. Set aside.
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Using a spoon, spread the cream cheese inside the pumpkin, trying to coat all the inside area. Pour shrimp stew into the pumpkin and return to the oven. Bake for another 20 minutes, or until cheese melts and pumpkin becomes really soft inside. Remove from oven, sprinkle some more fresh cilantro on top. Serve warm with white rice on the side.
I would take this over turkey on Thanksgiving anytime! 🙂
Hi Oana! This looks fantastic, and as always, the photos are gorgeous 🙂 We recently moved to the south of Texas – near the gulf – and the shrimp here is amazing. I will pin this one!
What a fantastic recipe!!!! I LOVEEEEEEE it so much, and you are right it’s perfect for the fall 🙂
This is one of those dishes with a wow factor. Instead of having a carved pumpkin, I think I prefer a stuffed one like this. 🙂
What a gorgeous presentation! I seriously need to make more meals with shrimp.
What an absolutely stunning dish and definitely one of the more creative fall dishes I have seen. I absolutely adore all the vibrant and colors.
Very creative and beautiful presentation!