Pumpkin Seed Oil

Pumpkin seed oil is a culinary oil pressed from pumpkin seeds, especially associated with eastern Europe, particularly southeastern Austria's Styria region, eastern Slovenia, Transylvania and parts of Romania, Croatia and Hungary, areas once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though it is now also sold in North America, Mexico, India and China. It has an intense nutty taste and is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, and it displays dichromatism, appearing light to very dark green or dark red depending on its thickness, turning bright green when mixed with yogurt. It is used mainly as a salad dressing, often paired with cider vinegar in traditional Styrian preparations, and is added to desserts such as vanilla ice cream and sparingly to pumpkin soup, but using it as a cooking oil destroys its essential fatty acids, so it is not suited to high heat. The premium Styrian version is pressed from roasted, hull-less seeds of the Styrian oil pumpkin variety rather than chemically extracted.