Rosa Jackson’s Mini Pumpkins Stuffed with Onion, Mushrooms, and Chard

If the cooking of Nice had a motto, it might be “let no vegetable go unstuffed!” So popular are les petits farcis, or little stuffed vegetables, that when I opened my cooking school in the Old Town of Nice, I named it after this dish. 

Usually made with summer vegetables — which might include tomato, zucchini, eggplant, onion, and bell pepper — and stuffed with a mixture of meat, finely chopped vegetables, Parmesan, egg, and breadcrumbs, this dish captures the essence of the local cuisine. Niçoise cooking is both thrifty, relying on the abundant local produce to stretch out small quantities of meat or fish, and luxurious in its use of the freshest and most colorful vegetables.

As the summer months come to an end — meaning that the tomatoes are no longer as sweet, and the round zucchini typically used for this dish vanish from the market stalls — cooks look for other vegetables to stuff, from red onions to chard leaves. There are as many ways to stuff vegetables as there are cooks in Nice, and I have gotten into the habit of asking the market vendors for their personal variations, inspired by seasonal produce. Often they do away with meat altogether, using grains or cheese to make the dish more hearty, and brighten the filling with fresh herbs.

One of my favorite stalls at the sprawling Libération food market in Nice is run by local organic farmer Aimé and his Tahitian wife, Cécilia, who is recognizable by the colorful flower in her hair. They love to experiment with growing unusual vegetable varieties, and I was drawn to their bright orange mini pumpkins, thinking at first — with Halloween around the corner — that they were more decorative than edible. Squash is a popular fall ingredient in Nice, but the local variety known as courge de Nice grows as thick as a sprinter’s thigh, making it better suited to tians (vegetable bakes) than stuffing.

Cécilia assured me that this mini pumpkin — an American variety called the Jack Be Little — is perfect for stuffing, as its sweet flesh quickly softens in the oven without pre-cooking. Its season coincides with that of wild mushrooms, and she described one of her improvised recipes so tempting in its combination of fall flavors that I rushed home with the ingredients to make it right away. 

Apricot-colored chanterelle mushrooms are one of the best to use for this dish because of their earthy sweetness and silky texture, but the more common cremini mushroom makes a fine substitute. I love the addition of Swiss chard, the staple leafy green vegetable in Nice, which adds a touch of bitterness that contrasts with the sweetness of the caramelized onion and mushrooms. Although cream and cheese feature only occasionally in the olive oil-based local cuisine, here a small amount of each makes this dish filling enough to serve as a vegetarian main course. I like to serve it with red rice (also known as Thai cargo rice), which I choose for its rich color and firm bite.