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PUMPKIN (a la Parmesan)
Cut a large pumpkin into square pieces and boil them for about fifteen minutes in salt and water. Take them out, drain them, and put them into a stewpan with a little butter, salt, and grated nutmeg. Fry them, sprinkle them with a little Parmesan cheese, and bake them in the oven until the cheese begins to melt, then serve.
A simple gratin-style side dish that needs only a few adjustments in timing and equipment. The main risk is overcooking: fifteen minutes of boiling plus frying plus baking will reduce most modern squash to mush.
- Choose the right squashThe recipe does not say what kind of pumpkin is meant. Butternut, kabocha or a sugar pumpkin will hold its shape and taste better than a watery carving pumpkin.
- Cut and quantity"Square pieces" is unspecified; roughly 1-inch cubes is a workable reading. A large pumpkin is far more than one household needs; about 2 lb of prepared cubes will serve four as a side.
- Cut the boiling shortParboil for 5 to 8 minutes only, until a knife tip enters with slight resistance. Fifteen minutes of boiling before frying and baking will collapse most modern squash.
- Drain hardSpread the drained cubes on a towel or leave them in the colander for several minutes to steam dry. Wet squash will not brown in butter, and surface water thins the cheese into a paste.
- The stewpan stepA stewpan is a wide, straight-sided pan with a lid; a heavy skillet does the same job. Fry over medium-high heat, turning rarely, until the cut faces take on colour, roughly 5 minutes.
- NutmegGrate it fresh and use restraint, about a quarter teaspoon for 2 lb. Pre-ground nutmeg gives none of the point of it.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives no temperature. A hot oven, around 425F, for 5 to 8 minutes gets the Parmesan melting and lightly browned without cooking the squash further. The broiler works if the pan is flameproof.
- CheeseUse real Parmigiano-Reggiano or a good grana, grated fine, about 2 oz for 2 lb of squash. The shelf-stable powdered kind will not melt so much as scorch.
"A la Parmesan" is used loosely here, as elsewhere in Victorian cookery writing, to mean a vegetable finished with grated hard cheese and browned. Pumpkin sat awkwardly in British cooking of the period, being met more often as soup or as a sweetened pie in the American manner than as a dish in its own right. The pairing of nutmeg with cheese and a sweet vegetable is old and durable, and turns up in gourd and squash cookery in northern Italy and southern France as well.