Roasted Kabocha and Maitake with Bitter Chocolate

Mexico and Japan couldn’t be farther away in distance and in culture, but in the contemporary American kitchen their ingredients find common ground. Here, sweet and earthy Japanese pumpkin and wild mushrooms are paired with a rich and bitter chocolate sauce based on mole, a famous Mexican stew. I don’t want to mislead anyone. This dish was certainly inspired, in part, by that wonderful sauce, but mine is so far from the authentic thing that to call it a mole would be insulting to the real a