Love for Three Winter Squash (or more)

Today, in honor both of the season and my current level of strictly caffeine-enabled brain activity, I blog of the humble squash.  I blog of the humble winter squash, specifically, which should be proud because it's actually pretty fabulous.  I shall skip the bland, slightly sour pumpkin and the inoffensive butternut and go straight to some of my favorites, gorgeous and tasty examples of some of which I was fortunate to find in October at my local organic farm, Hutchins Farm.

To quote my true love, "You mean there's more than one kind?"

"Yes!"

"And you can really taste the difference between them?"

"YES!"

"Huh.  Well, I'll take your word for it."

"You don't have to take my word for it.  I will cook them up, and you can taste for yourself."

"But you know, I don't really like squash."

"You just haven't tasted the right ones."

It is with the deepest sigh of disappointment and regret that I must inform my adored readers that, alas, even after being forced tasting several different kinds of winter squash, my true love still does not appreciate either its diversity of utility or its range of flavors, though he can occasionally be brought to admitting the visual appeal of isolated specimens.  Winter squash is a sad thing not to appreciate for more than its decorative value, however, because this stuff is inexpensive and deeply nutritious, possessed as it is of natural plant sugars to give you gentle energy, fiber to keep your insides squeaky clean, and also loaded as it is with beta carotene and Vitamin C.  Plus, it usually keeps a long time, which is one reason it is called "winter" squash. 

"Summer" squash -- pattypan, zucchini/courgette, crookneck, and the like -- blooms, fruits, ripens, and is consumed during the second half of summer and then early autumn and does not keep well much past that point without help.  Winter squash ripens in late summer and early autumn and in a cool, dark, and dry storage area, most varieties can keep for months.  In his delightful book Groundwork:  A Gardener's Ecology, Roger Swain writes of storing his own crop of winter squash in the space under the marital bed, which is not only terribly romantic, implying as it does both shared goals and longterm commitment, but apparently terribly convenient and, in New Hampshire, just the right temperature all winter.

When I read this to my true love, he did let me know that he would not be especially pleased if I attempted to follow the Swains' example, only partly because he does not appreciate winter squash.  This in no way reflects ill upon the state or feasibility of our longterm relationship, just as my true love's failure to appreciate the full goodness of winter squash does not reflect ill upon his character or degree of civilization.  And the fact that my love cannot appreciate the full goodness of winter squash just means more for me, of course.  However, it also means fewer ways for me to ply him with nutrients.

That's okay.  I feed it to him anyway.  I sneak it into things.  Because winter squash is so very versatile, it is extremely easy to sneak into things.  You can throw peeled chunks of it raw into soups and stews and, if the chunks are small enough, you can even stir fry them.  Winter squash makes excellent tempura.  And if all else fails, it makes wonderful (if sugary and fattening) pies and cakes, many of which are some of our most treasured recipes.

Today's post is not about sneaking, though, nor is it about ameliorating the nutritional deficits of the narrow palated.  Today's post is about forthright, open, out-of-the-pantry and pure squash love. 

I love winter squash -- certain winter squash -- so much that one of my favorite things to do is just oven roast it and eat it, plain.  My second favorite thing is to oven roast it, spread it on brown bread, and then eat it.  Yum.  My third favorite thing is to oven roast it and then turn it into soup.  Today I shall reveal secrets for all these techniques -- none of which are really secrets, 'cause I've gone on and on about them on many occasions before.  But today I'll show you pictures, so that's automatically better.

My very favorite variety of winter squash is the one which, sadly, keeps the poorest.  It is the red kuri squash.  Behold it in all its flame-orange and Kewpie-like adorability:

The red kuri, which ranges in size from this small to about a foot in diameter, is sweet, but not super-sweet, with a slightly nutty flavor and a sort of potatoey texture.  It bakes up like sugared sweet potato candy from Mexico, though not nearly so sticky, and sadly it does not keep very well.  I have had red kuri go squishy rotten on me in as little as two weeks.  Buy it by all means; it's wonderful stuff.  But unlike other winter squash, do plan to use it immediately.

My next favorite squash is actually two different kinds, but they are very, very similar in flavor and texture.  Only one of them was available at Hutchins Farm when I went squash shopping this fall, though.  These favorites are the delicata and the sweet dumpling.

Only the sweet dumpling is pictured above, at right, as no delicata were available the day I purchased these.  The delicata and the sweet dumpling are extremely similarly colored; however, the delicata is oblong, like a zucchini.

The other squash in this picture, the carnival squash, looks like sweet dumpling in shape, but as you can see is far more colorful and tends to be several times larger.  It is not as sweet and is a bit stringier.

My other two favorite squash are buttercup, which is nothing like butternut but far sweeter and more, well, buttery, and kabocha.  I think of winter squash flavors and textures comparatively. There is the pumpkin-to-sweet potato scale for flavor.  Squash which taste more like pumpkin to me include acorn and carnival.  Everything else I like is far sweeter.  On a texture scale, it goes from spaghetti squash, which actually cooks into strings, to sweet potato.  The red kuri is most like a sweet potato, carnival is closer to spaghetti squash, and sweet dumpling and delicata tend to hang out a little on the potato side of the carnival squash.

Completely confused?  Great!  Go buy one of each the next chance you get and taste them for yourself. 

Now let's cook up a couple.  I'm only going to demonstrate one, because once you've cut up and roasted one little winter squash, you've cut up and roasted every little winter squash.  Besides, when I attempted to cut open the deceptively docile-sounding sweet dumpling, it feinted left and the gigantic, newly sharpened knife I was using sank itself into my thumb instead.  This put a crimp in that day for me, so I didn't photograph anything else.

In spite of the inadvertent chiaroscuro of the above photo, perhaps that you can see that the first step after washing and drying the outside of the squash is to take off the stem from the top and the little stem-like navel on the bottom.  Sometimes the stem snaps off right at the base, but not always. Sometimes it is also more practical to quarter the squash before taking off the stem and navel.  If you can't easily do it the way I have shown because of the squash's particular shape, just do it later.

To make a starting place for cutting a small, hard-shelled object such as a winter squash, I find it most useful to drive the knife into the top and then carefully bring it down toward me.  This makes an opening from which I can then cut the item into halves, and then it's easy to cut it into smaller pieces after that.

This squash was a little green inside, probably because it was picked just a tiny bit early.  Sometimes that happens, but usually the taste is not significantly affected.  I can tell you that this squash tasted perfectly wonderful.

Next you'll want to clean out the squash.

Using a sharp-edged spoon, scoop out the seeds and pulp, leaving as much flesh as you can. 

On a large-seeded squash like this one, many of the seeds will be cut in half when you cut the squash into pieces.  Squash of every variety is very easy to grow, though.  If you have a garden with lots of sun and plenty of space for sprawling, climbing plants that will produce gorgeous, bee-friendly flowers all summer long, consider picking out a few whole seeds from your favorite varieties to save.  Let the seeds dry overnight, then put them in small envelopes or zip-closing plastic bags until spring.  You can start them indoors as early as April in colder climates and plant out the healthy seedlings as soon as the danger of frost has passed.  Trellising of some sort will maximize your space and help keep the leaves drier, better exposed to sun, and more likely to remain fungus-free.  In 2005, I successfully grew delicata in pots on my balcony from seed I had saved.  I had less luck with pumpkins, which I attempted from purchased seed and which require far more sunny space than I could offer them.  If you are successful, perhaps you'll grow enough to store under the bed like the Swains.  My balcony doesn't yield that much at all, but homegrown is always superior to store-bought, even when you buy fresh from a farm.

After you have cleaned the insides of the squash, you have a choice.  You can put all the pieces unwrapped in a covered dish, which is environmentally thoughtful, or you can wrap each piece in foil, which will result in better flavor.  When you put the pieces together in a covered dish, you set up more of a steaming situation where more moisture will be trapped in with the squash, plus the cut surfaces of each piece are likely to touch and protect each other, and less hot, sere air will touch them which will hinder caramelization.  (I know this because I have tried it both ways.)

I really love that caramelization, especially very dark caramelization right along the cut edges, so I usually opt for wrapping each piece in foil.  As you can see from the wrapped piece on the far right in the above photo, I like to cover each piece completely, with the rounded skin side facing down and the place where the foil edges meet and get crumpled together on top so that the foil wrapping can better catch juices, but I don't mind a little tiny air leak here and there in the upper hemisphere of each wrapped piece.  You don't want holes on the bottom, because then the juices will leak out and make a mess of your oven.  An air hole here and there pointing upward, though, can allow better circulation of hot air and reduce sogginess.

I don't know if you can quite make it out in the above photo, but I typically put my squash pieces on one rack and a cookie sheet on the next rack down.  The cookie sheet is there to catch anything that might leak out of each foil packet.  The leakings, if any, will still get on the one rack, but they won't get all over the bottom of the oven, burn each time I bake, fill my kitchen with bad smells and set off some random portion of the six or seven hard-to-reach smoke alarms with which this apartment is equipped per local codes.  Of course, I could prevent any leakage onto any part of the oven whatsoever by simply putting the pieces right on the cookie sheet, but then the hot air wouldn't circulate so evenly around each piece.

Yes, I am probably obsessive-compulsive.  Just a little bit, though, and perfectly harmlessly so far.

Now, here's where I channel my grandmother Hilda Sonnenschein, who drove my mother crazy when she was a young bride learning how to cook by never giving any precise measurements with her recipes.  "Oh, just throw in a smidgen," Hilda would tell my mother, or "You'll know when it looks right."  My mother had no idea how big a smidgen might be, and having been raised by a woman who never ever cooked and had less than exquisite taste in food, she also had no idea when things looked right.  But here's the truth.  I oven roast squash by smell.

The temperature I use is 350°F.  There is no point in preheating the oven; I have tried it both ways, and it does not affect flavor.  I honestly don't know if it affects cooking time because I've never ever written down how long it takes to oven roast squash.

I usually close the oven door, set the temperature, and walk away.  When it smells right, I take the squash out of the oven.  "Right" smells sweet and almost, and I mean just on the very edge of, burning.  When the squash is done, the whole house and the air outside for half a block smells of it, and it smells brown and dark and sweet, but there is no smoke yet.

At this point, I pull the pieces out of the oven and set them on a rack to cool slightly.  If it will be awhile before I can do anything with them, even just eat them, I might put them all together, still wrapped, in a bowl in the fridge.

Here's what it looks like properly done.

You see all those dark but not crispy edges and points and the lovely sticky brown stuff on the foil?  That is flavor gold.  That is the caramelization of the sugars in the squash.  This is the reason you don't boil squash, in addition to the fact that when you boil it, unless you also end up using all the liquid in the same dish, you cook the nutrition right out of it.  This is the reason you don't simply steam it, which preserves the nutrition but bleaches out all the flavor and tooth.

The squash isn't exactly hard on the tooth now.  It is now very soft.  You can eat it with a spoon.  If it's kuri, a little skin might get into your mouth with the flesh, but it will be tender enough that you can go ahead and eat it, probably without noticing.  The squash pieces will be equally good hot or cold, and each one makes a great quick energy snack, especially when you spread it over toasted whole grain bread, buttered or not.

Personally, I prefer it spread on unbuttered slices of Iggy's country boule, but it was very good this way, too, on buttered, toasted, honey whole wheat bread from Great Harvest.

As I learned from Jerilyn, you can peel and freeze roasted squash for later use.  You can also make it into soup.  All that lovely caramelization makes for a very rich soup indeed.

Here is the roasted winter squash soup I invented for Thanksgiving two or three years ago.  It's super easy, fragrant, and while hardly fat free is nowhere near as fattening or as artery-clogging as a traditional cream-based bisque.  Enjoy.

Winter Squash Coconut Soup

4 or 5 small (1-2 lb. ea.) winter squash
1 14-oz. can light coconut milk
cardamom to taste
nutmeg to taste
ginger to taste
water

1.  Cut each squash into quarters.  Scoop out seeds.  Wrap each quarter in foil.  Bake on a rack in the oven at 350°F until you can smell the squash caramelizing deeply, at least an hour.

2.  Remove squash from oven.  Cool until comfortable to handle.  Scoop squash out of skin and purée in blender.

3.  Pour puréed squash into a gigantic sauté pan (6 qt.).  Set heat at medium-low.  Stir in coconut milk until well-blended.  Stir in seasonings until evenly distributed but not cooked in.  Add water a little bit at a time, stirring constantly, until you achieve a consistency you think is yummy for soup.  Stir over heat until the soup is evenly warm, and then serve.

Notes:

• Of course I use organically grown squash -- and everything else, if I can get it.  The first time I made this, I used two small red kuri, a buttercup, a delicata, and a butternut
• "Light" coconut milk is only "light" because it's watered down.  The coconut milk you use for this recipe should come in a can that contains absolutely nothing but water and coconut milk, no sugar of any kind.  (Be especially on the lookout for corn starch or corn syrup, artificial flavorings, or nasty chemical preservatives).
• Use a very, very light touch when throwing in the nutmeg.  If you want to go overboard with a particular seasoning, do it with the cardamom or, depending on the palate of your guests, the ginger.
• Sauté pan:  I use a sauté pan made by All-Clad.  I love All-Clad because it heats evenly and very quickly and cleans very easily.  However, I only have All-Clad because I have a well-paid boyfriend.  I don't care if you use Farberware.  I only recommend something huge and shallow like this because you are going to be making soup from vegetables you just roasted for an hour or more and then mixed with canned juice.  If you use a stock pot, you will have to cook the soup a long time to get even heating, and that will destroy the intensity of all that lovely caramelization you roasted in.

Here is an excellent page on winter squash:

Squash, All About Squash, from What's Cooking America

Happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

[Ron Sullivan]

Here I am, just barely catching up with people. And nicely rewarded with that soup recipe, which I flagged for Joe. "Oh good," sez he, "something to use up all that coconut milk." I got a flat of cans at Costco, and if he make butter mochi from all of it, my arteries will seize up upon the instant. That recipe makes me think of tom gha kai, only vegetarian.

And we both luuuuuv winter squash. Delicata's good; for one thing, I eat it hide and all once it's been roasted. We can even cheat and nuke it if we're desperate and it's still good.

You know, that tuber riddle had me stumped. From the double eyes I thought maybe dahlia, but those roots looked like a case of possession by the Great Old Ones. (Ia! Ia! Cthulu fthagn!)

[Sara]

Oh, yes, you must make the soup. It's soooooooo easy. And the only fat in it is from the watered down coconut milk, and that particular fat is actually supposed to be really good for you, very heart healthy. And it's so tasty.

Me, I'm a cardamom freak. Any excuse to dump cardamom in something. Any excuse at all. (Make my day.)

Listen, I'm really glad you stopped by because after I posted this, I went on a little surf of my own favorite blogs, and by seasonal coincidence, when I hit Eggbeater, this is one of the entries that leapt out at me:

Squash Squash Squash Winter Squash Squash

In it, Shuna writes and shares photographs of a bunch of heirloom winter squash varieties she picked up from a farmer named Annabelle who habitually vends at the Berkeley farmer's market! How perfect is that? If you go and try any of these luscious looking varieties, do tell all!

As for the bulb thing, yes, those eremuri are freaky looking. I immediately thought they looked like aliens come to take over the planet, too. I was thinking more War of the Worlds (the old movie, of course) than Cthulhu, but you know, they are so very surprising looking that any interpretation seems apt.

I could do worse than to have them take over my front garden, I think. I really hope they like where I put them and bloom magnificently.

[shuna fish lydon]

Thank you, Sara, for the great link! I have finally figured out how to do the (simple) trackback, and I have successfully linked to you as well.

Squash is terribly yummy. Thanks for stopping by.

[Sara]

She cooks! She writes! She trackbacks!

Or maybe she tracksback. Very impressive either way. :)