Royal Foodie Joust November: Cekodok Labu dengan sos oren

It's that time of the month again when foodies around the world gather to showcase dishes prepared with three challenging ingredients. Since fall and Halloween is in the air over there in the States and Europe, it wasn't much of a surprise that the ingredient picked by last month's winner Susan were seasonally appropriate - acorn squash, sage and orange.

When I first read the list, I immediately thought that this was another I had to sit out as I had NO FREAKIN IDEA what an ACORN SQUASH was or where to find it in the middle of Asia. Like nada nil uh-uh. Fortunately I wasn't alone in this boat so the Joust ruler and queen of leftovers - Jenn opened up the category of squash to include pumpkins or other orange fleshed winter squash.

It still was new territory as I have never cooked squash or pumpkins before and the most I've had it in was stir-fries. Still got on the thinking cap, had a traditional inspiration and voila! Cekodok Labu dengan Sos Oren (or Sweet Pumpkin Fritters with Orange Sauce - since everyone is glamming up their dishes with italian names, figured I'd stick with the local and go with a Malay name)...

And since Deepavali is tomorrow (yeay!), the pic is a bit "festive" ^_^

Cekodok Labu (Sweet Pumpkin Fritters) dengan Sos Oren (with Orange Sauce)
Ingredients:
Quarter Pumpkin - cubed
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup water
2 heaped tablespoons Sugar or to your taste (I used Brown sugar)
Juice from 2 Oranges
1 teaspoon Orange zest
1 sage leaf
1/2 heaped cup Flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Method:
1. In a pot, cook cubed pumpkin with water. When it gets slightly soft, add milk, and sugar. Once pumpkin is smushy soft, remove it from the sauce to a seperate bowl.
2. Add orange juice from 1 orange and sage leaf into the pan with the milk and cook it down until you get a thick orange sauce.
3. In the seperate bowl, smush pumpkin with juice from 1 orange. Stir in orange zest, baking powder, baking soda and flour till you get a "muffin mixture" like consistency.
4. Heat a skillet with some oil. Scoop mixture with a teaspoon and drop it in. Flatten the drops slightly and cook till bottom doesn't stick. Flip around and cook the other side.
5. Drain oil from "cekodok" and serve with the orange sauce.

p/s: If you want to check out the other entries or join in the Joust, visit here.
p/p/s: Traditional Malay Cekodok is usually made with bananas.