Squash challenge: three things

[gominokouhai]

I bought these at the market this weekend. They are, I'm told, red onion squash. Peeled and chopped them and roasted them with a maple syrup glaze. It didn't work particularly well, mostly because I burned them. stormsearch was ecstatic however. Maybe I'm just not keen on squash. The smell was amazing though; candied orange peel and toasted walnuts. Between peeling and fishing out a metric shitton of seeds and cthuloid stringy pulp stuff, they took a billion years to prepare and I'm not convinced I'm going to bother doing them again. Were I to do so, the squash itself is fairly sweet and the maple glaze wasn't such a brilliant idea; something smokier, maybe involving paprika, would be a better idea.

I am rather more keen on the lime-and-coriander turkey burgers I made to go with them. They were fantastic, but alas this isn't turkey burger challenge week.

Had a massive bowlful of seeds left over. Toasted them for fifteen minutes on a low heat (135°C). The first batch just with salt and pepper, the second lot with garlic and paprika. These were fantastic. They're also low-carb and low-GI (or is it high? whichever means good), if that's your thang.

Getting the pulp and stringy crap off the seeds was longwinded but actually quite relaxing, once I'd developed an algorithm for it:

1. Spread everything on a piece of kitchen roll, and put another piece of kitchen roll on top. Press down to absorb some of the juice.
2. DO UNTIL bored
   1. Turn everything upside down
   2. Slowly peel back the top piece of kitchen roll. Pick off any seeds that have separated themselves from the morass and stuck to the paper.
   3. Pick out any other seeds that have obviously come loose.
   4. Put another piece of kitchen roll on top, press down.
   END DO
3. Throw remaining pulp into the stockpot. In doing so, you'll find a handful of extra seeds you missed.

I've had half a pig in the freezer for the better part of a year now. We named him Boris because of the resemblance. Last night, it was finally time to make some space in the freezer, so it was time to roast a rolled shoulder of Boris bigger than your head.

Tried something a bit different this time. Rubbed the skin with oil, salted and peppered the fuck out of it, and dumped the whole thing in the oven on low (160°C). After an hour, dropped in the squash wedges and sat the joint back on top of them. Everything was nicely done, with Boris just medium rare in the middle and utterly fantastic crackling on the outside, after another hour and a half. Then I had plenty of pig-squash juices left in the tin with which to make gravy.

An odd thing happened when I went back for seconds. I microwaved everything, just for a minute, to warm it back up, and afterwards the squash had completely changed taste. I can't put my finger on what was wrong with it—wasn't quite bitter, wasn't quite sour, but something along those lines. In any case I was definitely less keen the second time around.

  

Lo, am I like unto a culinary god.

And that concludes Squash Week. Frankly, I wasn't too keen on the squash itself, but the things that went with it were incredible.