Roast Pumpkin, Spicy Tomato Sauce
It’s funny how you grow into food. As a kid I reviled squash in all its incarnations, but now Laksh and I eat it often. A tender, sweet butternut squash (often just called pumpkin in the UK) is excellent in soups and curries, or even roasted and served as the center of a meal as in this recipe from The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater. Incidentally, The Kitchen Diaries is one of our absolute favorites; Nigel’s recipes are simple, seasonal, delicious, and inspiring. While he pitches this as a warming winter dish, to me tomatoes are the epitome of summer, and with the weather we’ve been having we were pleased to find both in our organic box delivery this week.
Roast pumpkin with spicy tomato sauce
Deep red and gold, an autumnal supper if ever there was one. This simple dish of roast vegetables stands or falls by the timing. I like to roast the pumpkin until it is soft but not quite collapsing, deep golden in colour, the edges slightly caramelised and sticky. Undercook it at your peril. The sauce is chunky and has a sweetness from the lightly blackened tomato skins. You may want to make some brown rice to go with this, especially if you are having nothing to follow.
We usually serve it with some couscous, simply prepared with mint, coriander, and pine nuts. Also, today we didn’t have any fresh chilies, so I used a combination of crushed dried red chili and chipotle and pasilla chili powders. My taste buds were very happy with this modification. Update: Elizabeth pointed out that Nigel seems to have left the Garlic out of the instructions. I added it back in (the text in the book has it, but it’s missing in the Guardian article linked above) below in this color.
serves 2 as a main dish
950g tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
olive oil
2 small hot chillies
1kg pumpkin or squashPreheat the oven to 200 c/gas 6. Cut the tomatoes in half and place them cut side up on a baking sheet or roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt, pepper, garlic and the finely chopped chilli. Roast for 45-50 minutes until the tomatoes are soft and lightly flecked with black.
Meanwhile, halve and peel the pumpkin. Cut into thick, melon-like slices and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Place on a baking sheet, toss in a little olive oil and season with salt and black pepper. Roast for 40 minutes, turning over after 20 minutes or so. It is done when it is fully tender to the point of a knife and sticky on the cut edges.
Roughly chop the tomatoes to give a coarse ‘sauce’. Serve with the roasted pumpkin and brown rice if you wish.
Wow, surprising dish. I don’t think I’ve had a straight up combination of pumpkin and tomatoes before. I’m eager to give this a try, but something tells me that Americans aren’t very keen on the orange stuff when Halloween isn’t anywhere near. I haven’t seen it around in NC, although there *is* an abundance of tomatoes this time of year, obviously (we’d better get *something* in return for this stinkin’ heat).
I think I’ll be on the lookout for pumpkin tomorrow, thanks for the recipe! Looking forward to more good stuff..
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 am
Forgot to mention: great pictures! Very appetizing…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 am
Look for butternut squash, Nico. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butternut_squash
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
I find GREAT humor in this Mark. I am the one who diligently tried to get you to eat squash in all shapes and sizes when you were young. You did not like acorn, butternut, summer, zuchinni, or spaghetti squash. I am thrilled you do now. I will send a recipe or two of my own for you to try.
Mom
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
OK, just made this tonight and served it with quinoa lightly tossed in parsley butter and it was a definite winner! Yay you guys (and Nigel, of course)! But, one thing, when and where does the garlic come it? Am I huffin’ on a pipe of banned substances, or does it not figure in the written instructions?
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I don’t know what you are huffing, but it definitely didn’t dull your reading comprehension skills. The recipe was indeed missing instructions for the garlic — great catch. I added the words “thinly sliced” and “garlic” in a different color above to clarify.
So the idea is you thinly slice the garlic and put it on the oiled-up tomato halves before roasting. Did you not do that? Shame if not, that’s what makes the dish for me!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
BTW, I should also mention that we roast the tomatos and squash at the same time, on the same tray. Nigel’s description implies the roasting is separate. I don’t know about you, but I only have one oven. One day…
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I feel a bake-off coming on!!!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
A bake-off!!! The foodie nerd equivalent to Justin and Britney’s dance-off of several years ago.
Oh, yes, to have two ovens…sigh…Unfortunately, failed to include the garlic. It was still pretty fab, but I could tell there was something missing.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Except we’ll still be friends after the bake-off.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:17 pm