Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Stuffed squash
I was intrigued enough by Dorie Greenspan’s “Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good” recipe to experiment with it this weekend. Fortunately for me and my family, there are no more pumpkins in the store, so I bought three acorn squash instead. Well, you know how big a pumpkin is, and how big an acorn squash is, right? So you would think that acorn squash would bake a lot faster than that whole, stuffed pumpkin. Yet it took a full two hours at 350 F for our dinner to be ready.
I’m not sure I’ll ever try the whole pumpkin version. Sounds dramatic, the kind of thing that would make a real impact at a dinner party. But not if dinner is at 7 and the pumpkin ain’t tender until 9 or 10. In any even, the acorn squash version rocked, so that’s what I’m reporting on this evening.
I doubt there are many rules regarding the stuffing itself. Use what you please. I could see a strictly vegetarian version working very well (especially if you’re the kind of vegan who eats cheese), but the bacon and ham I used made for a savory dish. Acorn squash does so well with sweeter flavors — my usual method (handed down from dear old ma) is to roast it with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar decorating the cut surface — so using cooked rice and chopped fruits and nuts, perhaps sweetened and spiced appropriately, would make an interesting side dish.
My stuffing consisted of the following:
Pepperidge farm stuffing from the bag, about 3 cups
One small yellow onion, chopped fine and sauteed in olive oil
Four strips of bacon, fried up crispy, then chopped
About 1/4 cup of chopped ham
About 1/2 to 2/3 cup of mixed cheeses, chopped into chunks — I used mostly gruyere
Chopped fresh shiitake mushrooms
Three garlic cloves chopped fine
Sage (fried crispy in bacon fat, then crushed), chopped green onion, fresh thyme, salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 350 while preparing the stuffing. I cooked my bacon, drained off the bacon fat, and added olive oil to the pan. Then I sauteed my onions along with my green onion, then added the mushrooms, ham, garlic, herbs. I took the pan off the heat, let it cool a bit, then tossed the sauteed goodies with dry stuffing and the cheese. Now you’re good to go. Almost.
Cut your squash in half at their equators, then clean out the yuck in the middle. To the stuffing, add 1/3 cup of cream (I’m sure you could use stock or even water) and several grinds of nutmeg. Stuff your squash and carefully put the two halves back together. You’ll find that if you set the acorn squash stem-side-down, they’ll sit squarely. Now cook them on a foil-lined cookie sheet for about an hour, carefully separate the halves, and bake for another hour.
To separate the halves, I used a big bread knife and passed it between the two halves. This worked well.
As I mentioned, it took a full 2 hours at 350 F for the acorn flesh to get tender. These were quite rich — Karen and I each ate only half a squash. The bacon, cheese, and ham likely made this dish heavier than it would be otherwise. I’m sure the cream didn’t help, either!
D.
As I recall acorn squashes are tough suckers to cut. I looked at them in a specialty store yesterday (Henry’s… think of Whole Foods), and I thought about getting one, but I don’t have a knife strong enough to cut the damn thing in half. I love the flavor of them though, and your filling sounds very tasty.
Easy — ask the grocer to cut it in half. The other day, I was looking for pre-cut pineapple (with all the skin trimmed away). I asked the grocer, but he misunderstood me. Anyway, he took a pineapple into the back and cut it down the middle, height-wise, and sold me the two halves. Not exactly what I had in mind but it does prove they’re able to cut shit if they want to.
A good bread knife works well, as does the carving-knife-and-meat-mallet combo.
We bake winter squash all the time. Cooking them with the halves rejoined sounds like an overly fussy bit, and is almost certainly why your squash took so damn long. Bake the halves separately; cover the stuffing with foil if it starts to get too brown, though that strikes me as unlikely.
I think my thought was: keep the stuffing from drying out. But you’re right, I would have been better off covering the tops with foil.
As for cutting through them, I’m not sure there’s an easy way. I brute force my way through it, hoping I won’t chop off a finger in the process.