Verrine: Savoury Pumpkin Coconut Mousse With Herbed Mascarpone

Last month, four of us fellow food bloggers and tweeps happened to get together by chance, and decided to each explore how we could make a good [Red Velvet Cake without artificial colour](htt

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Ingredients

6 to 8 tbsps chocolate about semi sweet curls
6 zucchini crisply fried chips

For the pumpkin coconut mousse:

1 1/2 cups pumpkin fresh purxe9e
1 tbsp butter
1 onion small , minced
1/4 tsp garlic paste
1/2 tsp ginger paste
1 carrot small , chopped
1 tsp celery chopped
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 cup cream (25% fat)
15 gm coconut milk powder
to taste salt

For the herbed mascarpone:

1 tbsp celery chopped
2 to 3 tbsps spring onion finely chopped greens
to taste salt black pepper and

Instructions

For the pumpkin coconut mousse:
In a pan, melt the butter and sautxe9 the onion, ginger, garlic, carrot and celery. Add the chilli flakes and the garam masala. Stir a couple of times and add the pumpkin puree. Cook for another minute and take off the heat. Allow to cool and then put the mixture into the blender and purxe9e till smooth and creamy.
Whip the cream till almost stiff. Add the coconut milk powder and continue to beat till the coconut milk powder is well mixed and the cream is stiff.
Fold the coconut milk powder- whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture till well blended.
For the herbed mascarpone:
Beat together the mascarpone cheese and the other ingredients, with a spoon, till smooth and creamy. Refrigerate till ready to use.
Assembling the verrine:
Spoon or pipe the pumpkin coconut mousse equally into 6 small verrine glasses. Spoon the herbed mascarpone over this in a smooth layer. If not serving immediately, chill the verrines till required.
Just before serving, sprinkle the chocolate curls over the mascarpone and garnish with a crisp zucchini chip and some celery.

Notes

Verdict:

The flavours were interesting and I would say they did quite well together, and surprisingly, the chocolate was a nice contrast to the savoury taste of the other layers.

The words “pumpkin” and “zucchini” decided it for Akshaya that there was no way this verrine could taste good! Not even “chocolate” would make her change her mind. The word “mascarpone” made her take a second look at the verrine, but after a taste she decided that she most definitely liked her mascarpone in sweet stuff.

My husband and I felt that this savoury verrine wasn’t quite to our taste. This is a personal opinion and like I mentioned before, it’s probably because we’re not used it.

I would take the mousse layer and turn it into a pumpkin-coconut milk soup and it would be fantastic. The herbed mascarpone would make an excellent dip or a spread for bread/ toast.

Zucchini is really not a vegetable we like very much anyways, so I’d give it a miss, and I guess I don’t have to say anything about the chocolate!

I love the idea of a verrine, and shall definitely make them a lot but my verrines shall be of the sweet/ dessert kind.

Please visit my co-conspirators in this venture, to see how they used the same 4 ingredients in their verrines.

Alessio** created some Fresh, Zingy Richness in a Clear Glass

Asha** came up with a Zucchini-Cocoa, Lime-Ginger and Smoked Salmon Mousse Verrine

Pamela** concocted a 4 Velveteers' Verrine

The four of us will be exploring (velveteering, as we like to call our monthly kitchen adventures!)) a new dish/ style of cooking/ cuisine every month. Each of us will share our recipes, experiences and verdicts on our blogs.

Do visit our blogs and if you would like to join us, please leave a comment here and we will get back to you.