Executive Chef Offers Pumpkin-Carving Tips

BY AMY HUNTER
Media General News Service
Published: October 28, 2008

With Halloween just around the corner, folks will soon sit down to carve ghoulish faces and single-tooth grins on their favorite pumpkin, creating one-of-a-kind jack o’lanterns. In keeping with the season, the following is a conversation with Richard K. Erskine, a certified executive chef and president and owner of Southeast Culinary College. Erskine teaches a pumpkin-carving class at the college, and here offers some of his best pumpkin-carving tips.

Q: What are the best tools to use for pumpkin carving? A kitchen knife or pre-packaged plastic carving tools?

A: My opinion is just to use a knife that you have at home. A lot of the ones you buy at the store are inexpensively made and they break very easily. They can be unsafe, too, because when the plastic breaks there is sharp metal on the inside. A paring knife is the best knife to use from home. They’re designed to last a long, long time and the great thing about them is that they’re already in the cabinet. You don’t have to go out and buy anything.

Q: What are the best techniques to use when carving?

A: People go right for the knife a lot of the time and I think the trick is to use a pencil or a fine-tipped magic marker to draw out your design first. Because once you carve, it’s done. With a pencil you can change your mind and stuff, and the lines only show close up. You know the old saying, measure twice, cut once.

And the other thing is to make sure your candle on the inside is not too high up so that it burns the flesh of the top. That smells really bad.

Q: When is the best time to carve?

A: That usually depends on the temperature. We usually carve ours one or two weeks before Halloween.

Q: What type of faces do you think are the most popular for jack o’lanterns?

A: They always like scared for some reason. They always like to do the scary, growl looks. They’re not harder. They’re just what people like to do. As a kid I always made mine happy. It always had a smiley face.

Q: What’s the best recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds?

A: Very simple. Just wash them off with a salt water solution to get that little sliminess off of them and then lay them out on a sheet pan individually, don’t just stack them up. Then, bake them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.