“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
- preheat the oven to 180ºC.
- 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.
- 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
