Roasted Spiced Butternut with Salad

Serves 4

This is great as a vegetarian main course, but the pumpkin is also good as a side dish with meats or other vegetable dishes and grains. If serving the pumpkin hot, use butter in the spice mix, or oil if serving the pumpkin cold with salad.

Roasted Spiced Butternut Photo: Julie Biuso

Ingredients

• 1 butternut pumpkin, about 1 kg
• 30g (2 Tbsp) butter, or 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp garam masa
• ¼ tsp chilli flakes
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp flaky sea salt (or ½ tsp regular salt), and a little extra for salad
• 100-150g salad of your choice
• 1-2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Toasted pumpkin seeds

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup pumpkin seeds
• 3 strips lemon peel, shredded
• Sprinkle of chilli flakes
• Flaky sea salt

Yoghurt Sauce

• ¾ cup plain unsweetened yoghurt
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 Tbsp chopped mint
• Extra mint for garnishing

Method

1 Preheat oven to 200°C. Trim stalk end of pumpkin. Cut pumpkin in half lengthways, scoop out seeds and loose fibre from cavities. Cut each piece of pumpkin into 4 long pieces and transfer to a shallow roasting dish lined with baking paper. Mix melted butter or olive oil with garam masala, chilli flakes, ground cumin and sea salt and spoon over the cut surfaces of the pumpkin wedges.

2 Roast pumpkin for about 50 minutes, until golden and nearly tender when pierced with a skewer (you want the pumpkin to retain some texture, not to cook down to softness).

3 While the pumpkin cooks, fry pumpkin seeds. Heat oil in a medium-sized frying pan over a medium heat. When hot, add seeds and lemon peel and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring from time to time, until lightly coloured. Use a slotted spoon to transfer seeds to a plate lined with paper towels. Sprinkle with chilli flakes and sea salt.

4 Mix together ingredients for yoghurt sauce. Dish pumpkin onto plates. Spoon a little yoghurt sauce over the top. Toss salad leaves with a dribble of oil, a splash of lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt - just enough to make everything glisten - toss gently then pile immediately on top of pumpkin. Scatter everything with pumpkin seeds and serve immediately.