Worth the Effort?
I’ve always been a little afraid of winter squash. I remember having it once as a kid and disliking it with the passion of a thousand burning suns. (We don’t say “hate”)
Then there was the time that we were low-carbing it and I made spaghetti squash instead of real spaghetti. No matter what they tell you, it’s not an equal substitution.
And last year I nuked an acorn squash and, while it was good, I wasn’t amazed at the taste.
So when Paul brought home four delicata squash from the farm, I didn’t know what to do with it. Paul looked it up online and found a recipe that pretty much treated it like mashed potatoes. He made them, and while the flavor was promising, for some reason the squash turned out rather pasty.
We had 2 squash left, and so I started looking to see if there was something else I could do with them, and I stumbled across a recipe on Epicurious, and apparently it’s originally from The Herbfarm Cookbook.
Paul had warned me about what a pain it was to peel. Well, the recipe said to just peel it with a vegetable peeler, so I figured it couldn’t be too difficult…right?
Wrong.
This thing is a pain in the patooty (we also don’t say butt). The skin it too thick for easy peeling using a potato peeler, but too thin for a knife without taking off a bunch of the edible part too.
Well, needless to say, I stuggled through with a combination of peeler and knife, and that was the hardest part of the recipe by a long shot.
Everything else was simple and straight forward, and behaved itself quite well.
And it was delicious. The herbs and cider boil down and create a wonderful glaze. The sherry vinegar and herbs keep it from being too sweet. The only thing I did differently was to use dry rubbed sage rather than fresh.
So was it worth the effort to peel? Yes.
Will I make it often on a weeknight? Probably not. It just takes too long.
Delicata Squash with Rosemary, Sage and Cider Glaze
6 servings
2 medium delicata squash, peeled & cut in 1/2″ pieces
3 T unsalted butter
1/4 c coarsely chopped sage (I used about 1 T dry rubbed sage)
1 T coarsley chopped rosemary
1 1/2 c apple cider
1 c water
2 t sherry vinegar
1 t salt
freshly ground black pepper
Melt butter in large skillet over low heat. Add sage and rosemary and cook, stirring, until the butter just begins to turn golden brown, 3 – 5 minutes. Do not brown the herbs.
Add squash to the skillet. Add the apple cider, water, vinegar, salt and pepper.
Cook, stirring occasionally over medium heat until the cider has boiled down to a glaze and the squash is tender, 20-30 minutes.
Season to taste with salt and pepper as needed.
Enjoy!
Recipes | greengrassliving | 
October 28, 2008 10:51 am
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