B(l)ack to the Roots
27 November 2007
As usual I strolled around Viktualienmarkt last Friday, looking for a concept of what to cook on the weekend. I decided to buy a chunk of a very nice looking pumpkin, with the idea of a creamy pumpkin sauce at the back of my mind.
As an almost natural companion to the pumpkin, which on its own does not have the strongest of all tastes, I wanted just a few carrots. This is where I stumbled over some funny looking dark, almost black, roots. The vendor claimed they had a more intensive taste than ordinary carrots, so I decided to give them a try. At home I found out that after peeling them they look purple-coloured, but just on the surface; inside they are orange, which looks quite peculiar when they are sliced.
Later I googled those carrots and found out that they are called or BetaSweet or maroon carrots. In fact ancestral carrots were either black,
red or yellow, whereas the orange-coloured carrot familiar to us today appears to have emerged in the Netherlands during the 17th century as
a result of crossing the original varieties. Now the purple-skinned, orange-fleshed BetaSweet carrot is again a creation of some
US based researchers, who crossed our ordinary carrot with the ancestral black carrot. The maroon carrot is supposed to be sweeter tasting and contains
up to 40 percent more beta-carotene than the conventional orange carrot.
Be it as it may - I can confirm that these carrots indeed have a strong flavour, and I particularly appreciate their texture, which remains firm also after having cooked them for a while. I thought it was a shame to purée them together with the pumpkin, so I just added them to the pumpkin sauce in pieces.
The meal I prepared on Sunday evening finally resulted in pasta with a tasty chicken, pumpkin and carrot sauce, delicately flavoured with ginger, cumin and nutmeg. My guests can assure you that the taste compensates for the admittedly somewhat messy aspect on the picture...
Pasta with Pumpkin, Maroon Carrots and Chicken
| serves 4 as a main dish |
| 400g fussili or other pasta |
for the chicken |
| 500g chicken breast filet |
| 3-4 teaspoons of curry |
| some garlic powder |
| some olive oil for frying |
for the vegetable sauce |
| 500g pumpkin |
| 3 large maroon carrots |
| 1 onion |
| 2 dents of garlic |
| 2 teaspoons of icing sugar |
| 1 tablespoon tomato purée |
| 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger |
| 1/2 teaspoon of cumin |
| some nutmeg |
| 250ml vegetable stock |
| 100ml white wine |
| some olive oil for frying |
to finish |
| some crème fraîche |
| some butter |
| some chopped parsley |
Peel the pumpkin and coarsely dice it into pieces of about 3 cm. In a stockpot heat some olive oil and fry the onion and the garlic (both chopped) until slightly browned. Sprinkle over the icing sugar and wait until it has caramelised, then stir in the tomato purée and add the fresh ginger as well as the cumin and some freshly ground nutmeg. Now cover with vegetable stock and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. When the stock has boiled down a bit, add the white wine and let it cook for a few more minutes. Check if the pumpkin pieces are really soft, then process them with a blender; the result should be a pasty purée. If it seems to liquid for a pasta sauce just let it boil down a bit further. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile season the chicken breast filets with salt, curry and garlic powder and thoroughly rub the spices into the meat. Then sear the meat in some olive oil for about 2 minutes on each side. The filets should be slightly browned but still raw inside as they will finish cooking in the sauce.
Cut the carrots into fine slices, salt them and sauté them in a little bit of olive oil. After about 10-15 minutes (the carrots should still have some bite, at least this is how I like them best) pour in the puréed pumpkin. Dice the chicken breast filets into pieces of about 1-2cm and add them to the sauce. Let it simmer for another 5-10 minutes or so until the pieces of chicken are fully cooked. Finally refine by stirring in some crème fraîche and some butter (I took about 2 teaspoons of each).
Don’t forget to cook the pasta in the meantime so it is ready once the sauce is done. This time I just had fussili (the spirals) at home, but I would actually have preferred farfalle (the butterflies) or tagliatelle (the ribbons). Don’t ask me why exactly, just seems intuitively right.
To serve sprinkle some fresh parsley on top of pasta and sauce. In addition you could also add some roasted pumpkin seeds (I forgot to do so, but would certainly be a nice finish).
| Suggestions for Desserts |
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