I first made this dish at the height of pumpkin season (which also happens to be the height of marrow season).
One day, as I was going down-town on the trolley bus, I saw a little boy on his way to school with a pumpkin lantern. It sent a shiver down my spine.
Several years earlier, I spent some time with a group of teenage school kids preparing for Halloween. It's a relatively new thing in the ex-Soviet Union, so I told them a few stories about how it all began and then we set about some pumpkins to make lanterns. I hadn't thought the whole thing through and I handed each kid a big knife, and even more stupidly, one pumpkin between two. After about twenty minutes when the level of excitement was reaching the uncontrollable, the full horror of what I'd done began to sink in. Kids were chasing each other around the room, slipping on pumpkin innards. Pumpkins were sliding off desks as kids tried to cut eyes and noses in them.
I had visions of someone being carried away on a stretcher and me spending the rest of my life in a Kazakh prison for criminal negligence. Thankfully it didn't happen. The day worked out fine. In the end, all the pumpkins had faces cut in them and the kids still had all their fingers. We put the lanterns along the window ledges of the classroom where the halloween disco was being held and they looked great. You can see the same lanterns in the photo on my pumpkin page.
Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces about two cm square. If using marrow, peel it too and chop into slightly bigger pieces. Courgettes generally do not need peeled. Slice into rings, two cm thick, or cut big courgettes into quarters lengthwise and then cut into 5 cm pieces.
Put the chopped vegetables in a sieve and place on top of a wide pan with some water in it. Cover the vegetable with the lid from the pan. Bring the water to the boil and steam the vegetables on a high heat for eight to ten minutes.
While the vegetables are steaming, get out the pestle and mortar (hope you've got one) and grind the peppercorns and coriander seeds. Add roughly chopped green coriander, mint and garlic and grind to a rough paste. Add oil, turmeric, lemon and salt and stir. When the vegetables are cooked, place them in a large bowl and gently mix in the dressing.