Do Not Roast the Squash

Trends and memes may be on the side of fall and winter squash — I dare you to find a single vendor without some variety of pumpkin foodstuff between September and December — but I rue the transition from light, delicate, and fresh summer squash, like zucchini, to heavy, sugary, and starchy winter squash, like acorn, pumpkin, delicata, butternut, and, of course, pumpkin. The most common way to eat winter squash, the one I see at potlucks and on restaurant menus alike, is actually the worst: a simple PC&R; (peel, cube, and roast).

This is a very good way to cook almost any vegetable, but a bad way to cook winter squash. Summer squashes are typically eaten young, while the seeds and skins are still soft and edible — even raw — while winter squashes have been allowed to grow to a mature stage, so they are hardier; their flesh is dense and sweet and their skin tough and sometimes warty. This makes them very resistant to winter temperatures, but their texture makes people think they can be treated like potatoes or sweet potatoes, with a PC&R.; Nope.

I have tried every possible way to PC&R; winter squash: I have par-boiled; I have sous-vided; I have covered in aluminum foil; I have experimented with every possible temperature and timing and size and shape and amount of oil. My final conclusion is that there is no good way to PC&R; a butternut squash or pumpkin. The pleasure of a roasted starchy vegetable is in the crispy exterior and pillowy interior, but this does not happen to winter squash — the only thing it does well in the oven is turn to mush.

This is all not to say that there are no good ways to eat winter squashes. That very tendency to turn to mush can be embraced. The squash is mush. Let it be mush. This means transforming it into soups, sauces, and purees, where the winter squash’s mushiness and heaviness become creaminess and richness. Here’s how to cook them properly.

I’m not going to recommend specific winter squashes for these recipes but will instead treat them as one monolithic squash. The varieties of winter squashes have largely similar flavors, and since we’re going to be pureeing, we don’t really have to worry about texture.There will be minor flavor differences that will need adjusting; kabocha, one of my favorites, is extremely sweet, so will need less (or no) added sugar, but for the same recipe, a less-sweet acorn squash might need a hit of honey or brown sugar. But largely, you can substitute in pretty much any squash for these recipes. (The only winter squash that won’t follow these rules is the noble spaghetti squash, one of the weirdest native plants in all of the New World. I love spaghetti squash, but let’s set it aside for now; it is not like the others.)

My basic winter squash soup is thus: Cut the squash in half, then scoop out and discard its guts (not the flesh, but the goopy stuff that actually looks like guts). Scoop out the seeds too, but don’t throw them away (more on that later). Rub the cut side of the flesh with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then place the squash, cut side down, on a baking tray and roast at 375 degrees, until soft. The amount of time depends on the size and type of squash; maybe thirty minutes, maybe an hour. I don’t know. If you want to send me a picture of your squash next to a ruler, I could send you back a guess of how long it will take. Or you can just poke it with a knife to see when it’s soft. It should slide in with very little resistance.

While the squash is roasting, take out your dutch oven or otherwise large heavy soup-friendly pot. Put a few tablespoons of oil in, then add half of a medium-sized onion, chopped, and a few cloves of garlic, also chopped. Sautee until onions are translucent, then add in some chopped up apple. How much apple will depend on the size of your squash, but about two apples for a medium-sized butternut squash, or a single large apple for a medium-sized acorn squash, usually does it for me. Lean towards a more tart than sweet apple, like a Jonagold, Jonathan, McIntosh, or even a classic Granny Smith. Cook until the apples are soft. By this point hopefully your squash is done. Take it out, let it cool, and then get rid of the peel somehow. You might be able to peel it back with your hands, but I usually can’t; just scooping it out with a spoon works fine. Toss all this mush into the pot, stir it around, then add the stock of your choice — chicken is best, vegetable is fine, beef is weird — until the mush is covered by about half an inch. Simmer this for about ten or fifteen minutes to let all the flavors get friendly with each other, then blend it somehow.

On the subject of blending: the best tool for this job is an immersion blender, which is cheap on Amazon. (This one looks nice.) Stick the blender right into the pot and blitz it for longer than you think you need to. When you think it’s done, go back and do it some more. When done, it should be absurdly velvety and thick and delicious. Season to taste; it will need a lot of salt and possibly some sugar or honey (I like honey).

There are lots of possible additions to squash soup. My favorite is to add in some cumin, coriander, and cayenne (more cumin than coriander, but just a sprinkle of cayenne) along with the apples, then to finish, spoon some tahini in the middle of the bowl of soup and sprinkle some za’atar spice mix, some toasted pine nuts, and some pomegranate seeds (I know, they’re called arils, shut up) on top. You can also swap out the oil for bacon fat way back at the beginning of the recipe; cut about four strips of bacon into small pieces and put them in the pot first. Render out their fat, and when crispy, remove them and put them on a paper towel for the rest of cooking. Cook everything else the same way, then sprinkle the crispy bacon bits on top of the soup. One final way: throw in some chopped chiles (one Thai bird’s eye is what I do) and ginger (a knob about as big as your thumb) in the beginning, then throw in a good curry mix with the apples. Serve with a spoonful of coconut milk, some cilantro pesto, and the toasted seeds of the squash you’re cooking with.

You’ll notice that the intermediate-level recipes above all have toppings. This is vital; a squash soup has only one texture and its flavor, though complex, is uniform and doesn’t change from bite to bite. So you need some kind of variation, and toppings are a great way to do that (and they look very professional). Croutons are okay, but I find they get a bit soggy. I prefer stuff that doesn’t: nuts, crisped meats, or crunchy fruits or vegetables. Raw apple is weird and nice. Also nice are pine nuts, walnuts, or peanuts, depending on what flavor profile is in the soup. Bacon, pancetta, or speck works well when crisped up. But the best of all is the roasted seed of the squash that you made the soup from.

(Ah ha, yes. The most important thing about squash is that all squash seeds are edible. I would further suggest that they are not just edible but actually the best part of the whole dumb vegetable. Wash them thoroughly, then set on a clean dish towel overnight to dry. They take forever to dry; I’m not sure why. Mix with maybe a tablespoon of oil and some salt, spread on a sheet, and roast in either the regular oven or the toaster oven at 300 degrees until slightly browned, which should take around half an hour. Feel free to experiment with seasonings, but I usually like to keep them bare and add spices later, because who knows what kind of dish they’ll be used in later!)

The weirdest thing about this soup is that, well, it’s also a sauce. It’s thick and rich and very flavorful, and you don’t actually have to do anything to it to make it a sauce. One way I like to use it is as a sauce for a pasta bake. Boil some creatively shaped pasta — elbows are fine, as are pretty much anything that’s not a strand-shaped pasta. Take out a baking dish and lay down a layer of soup/sauce. Mix the pasta with soup/sauce, as well as some cheese (chevre is my favorite) and sausage, if you want, and throw it in the dish. Now take about three tablespoons of butter and melt it in a pan on the stovetop, then add a cup of breadcrumbs (or panko). Mix and toast for a couple minutes, then lay down on top of the pasta bake. Throw the whole thing in the oven at 400 degrees and bake until the crust top is browned — about thirty minutes. (You’ll notice this is basically a macaroni and cheese recipe. It is not a substitute for macaroni and cheese, and for the love of god it should not be treated as some kind of sneaky trick to get people to eat vegetables. It is a squash and pasta casserole, not some kind of also-ran to macaroni and cheese.)

One last suggestion: risotto. Butternut squash is common in risotto, but almost always it’s done by throwing chunks of squash into the risotto. Jesus. Gross. Why mess up the perfect texture of risotto with mush-chunks? Instead, just use the squash as a thickener and richener (that’s not a word, is it? It’s good though, I think) for the stock. Peel and cube your squash, of any variety, and toss it in a simmering pot of stock until the squash is soft. It should be much more stock than squash; imagine a matzoh ball soup, where the squash is the matzoh ball. Then blend with your trusty immersion blender, and make risotto as usual. This is a good recipe to follow for that; ignore the saffron and use your new squash stock instead of regular stock.

Winter squash, truth be told, is not my favorite ingredient; I tend to prefer brightness and crispness, and winter squash doesn’t really offer that. But that doesn’t excuse the way it’s usually treated: as a mushy version of a potato, one that falls apart before reaching the heights of roastiness. Turning it to a rich liquid — now, that takes advantage of the squash’s strengths.

Crop Chef is a column about the correct ways to prepare and consume plant matter, by Dan Nosowitz, a freelance human who enjoys hot salads and lives in Brooklyn, naturally.

Photo by Nora Kuby