Monday, October 22, 2012

We Should Cocoa - Pumpkin

So this is what I made for the October 'We Should Cocoa' challenge:



Not very pretty, and not obviously anything to do with chocolate but I went for Roasted Pumpkin with Mole Sauce. I dressed it up a bit with some chopped fresh tomatoes and a poached egg dusted with mild chilli flakes.

I chose the savoury route as I am not very fond of pumpkin in sweet dishes and could not think of anything sweet with pumpkin and chocolate that I was inspired by.

I have been growing chillies at home this year and they have been my only 'glut' so I was keen to get using them. They are also far hotter than I was anticipating so I cannot use them in large amounts at a time.

I picked the larger ones earlier as the plants were all getting quite ragged. The picked chillies are holding up well just kept like fruit in a bowl and I am going to try and dry some of them too.



The smaller size chillis are still surviving in my unheated conservatory but I think I will need to pick them soon.



My mole sauce was based on a recipe I found on the David Lebovitz web site for Chocolate Mole. He serves the sauce with meat or chicken but it worked very well with the chunks of roasted pumpkin.

I substituted my fresh chillies for the dried poblanos he calls for, and used ground almonds as the thickener. I skipped the dried fruit as I felt it was going to be sweet enough and I don't have unsweetened chocolate but I do have a 90% dark so that was close enough. The colour does change to a bit of a muddy hue once the chocolate is added which was a little off putting but the flavour was very deep and rich.

I had quite a lot of mole sauce and roasted pumpkin left over so did another version a day later with melted cheese, yoghurt and lime but I preferred the first version.




The We Should Cocoa Challenge is hosted by Chocolate Teapot  and Choclette, and the October challenge is being guest hosted by Hungry Hinny, a round up of this challenge will appear on their blogs at the end of the month.

5 comments:

  1. I've only ever made mole sauce to go with chicken before but your choice of using it with pumpkin sounds delicious. I'm also impressed by how many chillies you've managed to grow, they'll keep you warm this winter whatever you cook with them!

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    1. Chilli plants are so colourful with their dark green leaves and bright red fruits they are worth growing just to look at, but I like eating them too!

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  2. Using mole sauce to go with pumpkin is a splendid idea and actually I suspect would be good over many roasted vegetables. You've made it looks so pretty, despite what you say. Your blue bowl and plate are gorgeous too. We're still waiting for our chillies to ripen, all bar one. They are outdoors so we've covered them with fleece and just hope they hurry up. Thought we don't normally get any ripe ones before November.

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  3. Thanks Choclette, I am thinking I should make a large batch of mole sauce and freeze it. I hope your chilli plants cozy up under the fleece cover and ripen off for you.

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  4. I love Mole - and this is a great idea for WSC! Lovely recipe and innovative entry! Karen

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