Holiday Feast: Maple and Macadamia Hasselback Roasted Pumpkin
We are so excited to finally start sharing our holiday recipes! We have been spending the last few months in our kitchen creating and testing a range of dishes we know you'll love to make for your family and friends during this festive holiday Christmas season. Not only do we love creating a festive holiday tablescape (you can find the tutorial for our DIY Holiday Native Leaf Garland here), we also love making food that makes people smile.
The first recipe in our Holiday Feast is our Maple and Macadamia Hasselback Roasted Pumpkin with Bush Bukkah. One of our favourite things about roasted pumpkin, is the crunchy texture of the pumpkin skin when it's roasted. We've always loved hasselback potatoes but wanted to try something different, so we decided to try this technique using pumpkin. For us, Christmas is about traditional and native ingredients. We love the combination of maple syrup and butter, and knew we needed some texture, so the addition of macadamia nuts and our favourite Australian Bush Dukkah came together to create the best hasselback roasted pumpkin IMHO.
Bush Dukkah is an indigenous take on the traditional Dukkah. It is made using 100% Australian ingredients - macadamia nuts, sesame seeds, lemon myrtle, wattleseed, peppeberries, mountain pepper, kakadu plum and salt. This Australian Bush Dukkah takes this roasted hasselback pumpkin to new heights, but if you can't or don't want to buy any, that's ok. This dish will stall taste absolutely heavenly. We do encourage you to try it though - it's the most delicious accompaniment to meat, fish, vegetables, salad, bread and cheese. We've even sprinkled it on top of our Melon and Burrata Salad with Crispy Proscuitto and Basil - recipe coming nest!
Ingredients
1 x Japanese pumpkin, cut in half and sliced with a
75g salted butter
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp Australian Bush Dukkah
Pinch sea salt (we use Maldon Sea Salt)
Olive oil spray
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
Handful fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
Method
Preheat oven to 200C.
Prep your pumpkin by slicing along through the skin from side to side being careful not to cut all the way down to the bottom. Slice about 1/2 cm apart and again, be careful not to cut through to the bottom of the pumpkin - this is really important because if you do, the pumpkin will collapse and fall apart when you transfer it from your sheet pan to serving plate or platter.
Line a sheet pan with a sheet of aluminium foil and grease with olive oil spray.
Transfer the two pumpkin halves carefully onto the sheet pan.
Melt butter and maple syrup for 30 seconds. Stir with a fork to ensure the butter is properly melted through. Add nutmeg, Bush Dukkah and a pinch of seal salt, and stir to combine.
Using a pastry brush, cover the pumpkin with the maple butter and try to get as much as you can in between the creases of the sliced pumpkin.
Place the sheet pan into the oven for 30 minutes.
Take the pumpkin out and cover again with the maple butter.
Reduce the oven to 180C and place the pumpkin back into the oven for 30 minutes.
Take the pumpkin out and cover again with the maple butter.
Roast the pumpkin in the oven again for a further 15 to 30 mins. Making sure the pumpkin skin is not burning; if it looks like it is, take it out of the oven.
Take the pumpkin out of the oven and set aside to cool slightly for 15 minutes.
Transfer to a serving plate or platter using a long palette knife or knife by sliding it underneath and pumpkin and lifting it with your hands.
Pour the remaining maple butter and pan juices into the creases of the pumpkin. Top with macadamia nuts and parsley.
Serve and enjoy!
