Ingredients
Serves two:
- orange pumpkin of about 1.25 kg
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 chopped onion
- 250 g cleaned Brussels sprouts
Sauce:
- 2 heaped tablespoons fair trade peanut butter
- 1 clove garlic, pressed
- 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
- salt
- water
Garnish:
- red pepper
- chopped parsley
- cornflakes
‘American’ because of the ingredients, especially peanut butter and cornflakes. Doctor and vegetarian John Harvey Kellogg claimed that he invented peanut butter around 1890 for patients with dental problems. ‘Not at all certain’, writes Andrew F. Smith in The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (2007). And he immediately adds that people in South America, where the bean is native, and in Africa, where it was planted by slave traders as food for their merchandise, also ate it ground. Slaves in turn brought it back to North America. The Dutch word pinda for peanut was derived from Congolese via Papiamento.
Since Kellogg was an exceptionally good promoter, peanut butter became a hit among vegetarians, but not only there. Children liked it and could spread it on their own bread, which made the product so popular in 1920 that it had a profound influence on the cuisine of North America. Americans love their peanuts very much. For example Andrew Smith experiences the smell of peanut roasting as ‘heavenly’ and sees the combination of peanuts/chocolate (peanut rocks!) as ‘a marriage made in heaven’.
- Wash the pumpkin, halve it, scrape out the seeds and threads. Wrap it in perforated foil and place it on the convex side in a microwave dish, cook for 10 minutes on the highest power. Scoop the pulp out of the skin. In the meantime, cook the Brussels sprouts in an open pan until al dente.
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan on a low heat. Fry the chopped onion until translucent; mix with the pumpkin pulp and some salt. Place the sprouts in the middle.
- Stir the peanut butter with garlic, lemon juice, salt and enough water to form a thick paste. Divide spoonfuls of this over the sprouts.
- Garnish with the chopped pepper, parsley and cornflakes.
Wine: Chardonnay.
Menu suggestion:
- Starter: Apple salad: mix 1 washed red apple in thin strips with some finely chopped pointed cabbage, a spring onion in rings, a good amount of walnut oil, 1 tablespoon of walnut vinegar, salt. Sprinkle with plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
- Dessert: Heavenly ice cream: melt 30 g of dark chocolate in the microwave with 2 1/2 tablespoons of water; stir in 2 tablespoons of unsalted roasted peanuts. Spoon warm over vanilla ice cream.
