Pumpkin, butternut squash or squash are in season with Halloween. But emptying the pumpkin to carve it shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the good things inside. Just scrape the threads with a spoon, possibly reserve the seeds to grill them on the side, slide the pumpkin into the oven, cut into four quarters, the flesh side up or just emptied with its cap on top for faster cooking . The flesh will be very tender once it has been preserved in its skin for half an hour at 170°C.
But you can also cook the pumpkin in slices in a little fat in a pan, it’s more difficult to cut, but you will have caramelized edges…
After this preamble, here are several ways to accommodate it. In savory or sweet dishes. You will see it is very simple. And you will be spoiled for choice.
Amandine Chaignot’s easy squash
This is the simplest recipe imaginable. In his book Natural Cuisine (Solar), Amandine Chaignot cut the squash in half, slide in the flesh of a head of garlic previously preserved in the oven, a mixture of roughly chopped mushrooms sautéed in a pan, crushed chestnuts, halloumi, a handful of homemade bread croutons , two branches of thyme and two branches of rosemary… The chef puts the hat back on, bakes for 45 minutes at 170°C. Then remove the hat and brown everything for another ten minutes at 180°C. To this vegan version, you can add more carnivorous ingredients, pan-fried sweetbreads, “a real delight”, according to Amandine Chaignot.
The perfect chords of Thierry Marx
“At midnight, they transform into carriages, but at noon, they reveal multiple unexpected taste facets. » Thierry Marx is categorical: butternut, pumpkin or pumpkin must be dried in the oven or in the pan to evacuate their water and concentrate their flavors, before combining them with other ingredients.
The Flavor Atlas (Dunod), published by Thierry Marx with researcher Raphaël Haumont, highlighted two aromatic profiles for butternuts, pumpkin or gourds. One, woody and spicy, combines them perfectly with garlic and porcini mushrooms, chestnuts and curry, mussels and vanilla, maple syrup and gruyere. The other, green and legumes, combines them perfectly with beetroot and snacked white fish, with orange and avocado, with pear and lychee… Thierry Marx suggests in the book to dare to mix cubes of butternuts still warm with a very fresh pear lychee fruit salad. Exploding !
Marine Zerbib’s ultimate flan
A shortcrust pastry with cocoa powder, a flan mixture with pumpkin puree and a melting praline insert with pumpkin seeds. The three allow you to prepare pumpkin or pumpkin spice flans. pastry chef Marine Zeribwhich she imagined and developed with her former apprentice Nina Marchand.
The recipe can be found in Flan (Ducasse edition), essential work for those who appreciate this cake which has found shapes and colors in recent years. The praline insert is prepared the day before by making a paste with roasted pumpkin seeds mixed with a dry caramel, poached in half-sphere silicone molds placed in the freezer to be slipped the next day when cooking in the oven of the flan maker. The latter is prepared by first mixing egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch and carrot cake spices, pouring pumpkin puree with milk over it, heating the whole thing to 84° C before mixing it with whipping cream and butter. Cooking the flans: ten minutes at 180°C before lowering for an additional five to ten minutes at 150°C.
The simple glasses of Max La Manna
As much as the flan recipe is appetizing, but complicated, that of Instagrammer Max La Manna is easy, since it involves concocting pumpkin pie-style verrines. The recipe he gives in his book No more waste (The beach) is ultra-simple. This involves successively placing four layers of preparations in a glass. Pecan crumble at the bottom of the glass: a mixture of pecans, pitted dates, ground almonds, blond sugar and ground cinnamon. Next comes the cooked pumpkin, for a second layer, mixed with coconut cream, maple syrup, icing sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. The third layer is made of coconut cream mixed with cream cheese, vanilla and maple syrup. Add to this a little more crumble to finish.