Winter squash is a fall vegetable, so it is seasonal and relatively inexpensive. You have many different options, including kabocha, butternut, acorn, spaghetti, and hubbard squashes. And, hey, let's include pumpkin.

In How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman lists steaming, braising, braising and glazing, and roasting as the best methods for cooking. The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg lists bake, braise, grill, mash, puree (hi, gobbo), roast, saute, and steam as techniques. Their most highly recommended flavor pairings with winter squash are apples, butter, garlic, nutmeg, onions, sage, brown sugar, and thyme.

So, cook something using any variety of winter squash and discuss it by Monday, November 26. You are encouraged to post pics, not just of the final dish, but also during stages of cooking. If you can't take pictures while cooking, perhaps a shot of your ingredients/mise en place before you start? I encourage people to cook, even if they are not into haute cuisine or food porn. This is a cheap ingredient, so it is easy to experiment with.

If anyone wants make something but has no clue of what to cook, I (and probably other posters) can give you ideas. Just tell me what sort of thing you want to cook, what other ingredients you want to use, and whatever limitations you have (please, state immediately if you are a vegetarian).

Also, use this thread to discuss how we want to handle this (including a better name?). In the past, there was a OOT Iron Chef series of threads that eventually died. They had posters prepare an appetizer, entree, and optional dessert using the secret ingredient. Then, there was voting, and the winner usually got to pick the next ingredient (sometimes put up to a vote). Do we want a formal competition with rules? If so, what rules? If not, how do we determine the next ingredient? I guess we'll see how many people participate and go from there.

Also, you can just talk about squash. What is your favorite squash dish? Mine is ginataan kalabasa, a Filipino with squash cooked in coconut milk, with green beans and shrimp as optional ingredients.

Excellent!

My sister just gave me a dozen acorn squash from her garden and I've been cooking a lot more winter squash this year than in the recent past. I'll have several submishuns.

As for prizes etc, maybe a custom under title or avatar for the inaugural winner to drum up interest? I'm up for whatever.

None of these are official submissions, but:

Lets get some porn up in here -

Spaghetti squash salad.



Heated the sunflower oil, added 1/4 teaspoon of asafetida, heated until it smelled good, then wilted the bell pepper. Added tomatoes and cooked a couple minutes until warm.

Baked the split and seeded squash 30 min at 350f, then scooped the stringy flesh into a bowl. Added tomato/pepper/oil mix, some feta cheese, fresh chopped basil, and sliced olives.



Saffron butternut squash and seafood risotto:





Gogogogogogo

In my mind, squash is a soup item. Are these too basic, or ok to do?

Thai Butternut Squash Soup



Squash, Lentil & Chickpea Soup

The iron squash.

Really simple butternut squash recipe:

Take a medium sized squash (huge for summer, small for winter), peel and dice, sweat for 20 minutes in a tbsp butter, add 1 cup milk, 3 cup chicken stock (should work with vegetable too), simmer until tender, blend, season, serve.

Looks like this:



Tastes great warm and cold. Garnish with sour cream, croutons, deep fried sage leaves etc. as desired.

I'm cool with the undertitle thing. I don't think I've used up all my influence getting the forum to exist. If this becomes and ongoing thing, maybe we can have the custom titles rotate off and on, too?

As for soups - my opinion would be that soups are delicious (particularly squash soups), but that it will be difficult to win any kind of competition with soup.

How do we want to handle the competition aspect of this, if any?

My roommate and I are going to do our butternut squash in a potato cannelloni. Not sure what's going with it currently but we'll think of something.

Not that fussed about a competition aspect personally as the challenge/fun of using a different ingredient is what I'm hoping to enjoy.

I've never liked winter squash. Which is good, that will make it more of a challenge of my skeelz to make something that tastes good to me.

I don't know what I'll be making yet, but I know it won't be soup. For me, the point of these type of threads, just like with the old Iron Chef OOT thing, are to push myself to do something different, not to make a classic recipe I've made 10x before. But there's not necessarily anything wrong with it if you do that.

Btw, is it gonna be like ICOOT where we vote on a winner, and the winner picks the next ingredient?

That's what I am trying to figure out, but I figured out we might as well toss an ingredient out there and see what happens.

At worst, if we're still trying to decide how or if we should declare a winner, I have a few ideas on how to get a community-based decision on the next ingredient.

I just want some ideas for squash-based sides for Turkey Day.

+1 to this as long as it rotates off. Maybe it stays for the next fortnight and then goes back.

My only problem with the undertitle (which I'm fine with) is that it encourages 1 winner.

Even though there's only a few of us, I feel like there might be marks for most mouthwatering, FPOTF (food porn of the fortnight -- I like that, I think it's gonna stick gogogo), most original dish, etc

Especially since we can't taste the dishes.

Wyman,

I gots no problem with a variety of "most ..." categories, but certainly we can agree that it's OK for a fun contest with no stakes to have only one "best overall" category winner?

Of course! I think the undertitle is a good idea. Just pointing out that we should encourage awesomeness in a bunch of ways.

Thank god you included pumpkin or I woulda had to sit out the inagural cook.

Ill have a look at some pumpkin recipes, but I have an idea Ill be baking instead of cooking, but who doesnt like desert?

I got bored today and made up a very tasty butternut squash, date and walnut cake with butternut squash icing. If it's not all been eaten I'll try get a photo tomorrow.
Hadn't see this thread - just had a lot of squashes in the cupboard and felt like some experimental baking.

Here is what I'm thinking right now, obviously going in the sweet direction. Suggestions/thoughts?

- a custard or chiboust made with coconut milk and pumpkin puree, possibly bruleed

- brown sugar and vanilla marshmallow, cut into 1 inch dice, 3-4 of them on the plate

- some kind of spice cake or financier, cut into cubes, tossed in brown butter, and dehydrated for a light crunchy texture, like a crouton, 3-4 on the plate

- roasted butternut squash fluid gel

I feel like it needs acidity and some brighter flavors and colors.

Oh dear god, you mean I actually have to cook?

probably do a roasted squash. cubed, roasted, herbed or spiced and sugared or something.
I guess butternut.

Entry 1:



Mâche, sautéed butternut squash, shaved kohlrabi, toasted shallots, toasted pignioli, sous vide duck breast w crispy skin, dressing of ~1:1 lime juice and toasted shallot oil with salt, pepper, and a bit of Dijon.

This was so, so good.

Wyman,

That looks delicioius, but I don't get the impression that the squash was the central flavor of the dish. Then again, this is not (for now) Iron Chef style. Did you disassemble the duck, crisp the skin, and then reassemble it? Or did you use a torch of some kind to crisp the skin? There's an impressive lack of extra cooking looking-ness to the flesh next to the skin.

All,

I had a really pleasant dish at a Spanish restaurant last night: Squash, marcona almonds, arrope (a grape concentrate). Very simple, prepared as a puree of squash with a drizzle of arrope over the top, and the almonds stirred through cracked up but not into infinitesimal pieces. Might try to recreate for the thread. This is a recipe from the restaurant's chef of an older version of the dish:

http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_de...ts_marcona.htm

Thanks!

You are correct, squash was not the central flavor. There will be more dishes forthcoming, though, where squash will feature more prominently.

I did not disassemble the duck breast. After removing the breasts from the bird, we let them sit and drain a bit in the fridge overnight, dry marinated them with salt and pepper and some slivered garlic tucked into slits in the skin, and then sous vide @ 135 for 45 min. Then I just got a pan really effing hot and put the breast in skin side down for about 3 minutes. The fat started to burn a bit before I realized how hot that pan really was and how brown and crispy the skin got, so I just yanked the breasts at that point. Turns out the skin had tons of flavor, so it worked out.

I also made my first confit (the legs of that duck) today, so I'm pretty pleased with how this whole thing turned out. Favorite outcome from the salad, though, was realizing how flavorful canola oil gets if you toast a shallot in there. Holy cow that oil was awesome, and it really made the dressing.

OK here's a featherweight entry. I was first thinking of butternut squash risotto, but due to time trouble ended up doing Butternut Shrimp Bisque. which sounded exotic (not much Louisiana cuisine here in scandiland) and tasty. I cheated a little since fresh prawns are impossible to obtain, and used frozen prawns and lobster stock base instead.
Come on, stick for intensified flavors:

Final product:

Shrimpy, squashy, creamy Scooped down with some rustic bread

Dish 2: Spaghetti squash primavera

Not super exciting, but roasted spaghetti squash, sautéed zucchini, grape tomatoes. Drizzle of good olive oil, fresh grated Reggiano Parmesan, salt, fresh ground pepper, fresh basil.

Takes no time at all, and the dish is incredibly flexible. The olive oil is more important than you think.

Ok, so Im never gonna win with this because I took a cop out, but squash and pumpkins are no where near my range. With Thanksgiving and all Ive been busy with work and cooking other things, so I made the easiest pumpkin pie ever.

All you do is combine 2 eggs, evap milk, and a can of pumpkin pie mix in a frozen deep pie shell...



Works out delicious in a pinch. I was going to try making one from a pie pumpkin, but I found it incredibly difficult to find them around here after halloween Ill try more effort for the next ingredient if I have any familiarity with it at all.