Friday, October 17, 2008

Smoky braised pumpkin with seared onion

As you've probably noticed by now, I've been doing a lot of braising lately. Instead of being sad about the end of summer produce, I've embraced the best that fall has to offer. This recipe is from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen cookbook. If you can find a mexican pumpkin, great; if not, use a sugar pie pumpkin like I did. A mixture of roasted tomatillos, chipotle, tomatoes and garlic is poured over the peeled, cubed pumpkin and topped with seared onion. Make sure to use plenty of salt and pepper because the pumpkin will release liquid as it cooks and dilute the salsa mixture. The recipe has an optional step of adding some pork, which I skipped since I was serving this as a side dish.

The sweetness of the pumpkin was a nice contrast to the smoky and spicy tomatillo mixture. That being said, this dish was good, but not amazing considering the lengthy prep and cook time. The pork would have probably added another flavor dimension. I think this would also work with a butternut or kabocha squash.

8 comments:

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

This looks great. I love Fall and all the meals we make.

susan said...

my mouth is watering.

alexandra's kitchen said...

Too bad it wasn't worth the effort. the chipotle-tomatillo sauce sounds amazing, however. i bet you could use that in many other dishes.

RecipeGirl said...

Delicious fall idea... I've never thought to make pumpkin as a side dish before! I'm thinking toss it with a little maple syrup and spices and roast it up like butternut squash?

Annie said...

Looks yummy. I have never cooked fresh pumpkin before. I like Recipe girls idea too, yum!

Sara said...

A few weeks ago I saw Martha Stewart take cubes of pumpkin and roast it with salt, pepper, olive oil and whole sage leaves. I may try that next!

Annie said...

That sounds good too. I'm very tempted to try it myself!

Maris said...

This looks really good! Fall has the best food. It is frustrating though when you invest a lot of time and energy into a recipe and it just doesn't turn out as well as you planned!