“Sweeter than a basket of kittens sharing a lollipop. Delicious roasted together or paired in a soup”

^{-Niki Segnit, The Flavour Thesaurus}

Almost any other way of dealing with butternut squash involves elbow grease. I said, almost, because Truffled Butternut Squash is also very straight-forward!

If you want a little more depth of flavour, roast with seeds in – adding some cut garlic, oil, salt and pepper – for the first half hour, then scoop out the seeds and add the other ingredients.

Don’t be tempted to substitute acorn squash. It’s more fibrous, with a higher water content and so blander, and it is less substantial (less starch). For more detail, and a hilarious interview with both butternut and acorn, go to the lovely blog, Eat Like No One Else.

Recipe for super-easy butternut squash

Serves 2

Ingredients

• ½ a butternut squash (cook the other half with olive oil, pecans, a little maple syrup, and feta and have it for lunch)
• 1 tsp smoked salt, more pepper
• 50g/2 oz butter (about a fifth of a pack)
• 1 banana shallot, peeled and chopped
• 60ml/¼ cup double cream
• 1 tbsp truffle oil (the type that’s actually seen a truffle, NOT with truffle ‘flavour’)
• ½ stick of cinnamon

Method

1. preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds, add a tbsp of truffle oil, a knob of butter, the cinnamon stick, the smoked salt, more pepper and put it in the oven for about an hour until it becomes soft.
3. melt another generous knob of butter in a saucepan and fry the banana shallot. Add the soft squash and the cream and mash with a fork.

© 2014 Saucy Dressings