Home › The Principles of Cookery › WINTER SQUASH (an American recipe)
WINTER SQUASH (an American recipe)
Winter squashes are stewed in the same way as others, but they must remain on the fire a little longer. Cut up the squashes in pieces of an inch thick, having first pared them, if old, extract the seeds and boil the pieces until they break, mash them with a spoon, boil them a little longer, and when they are done squeeze them through a colander. Mix them with a little salt and a small quantity of butter. If kept in a dry place winter squashes will remain good all the winter, but if they are once frozen, they lose their flavour and are apt to decay. They are richer and firmer than the summer kind.
A plain nineteenth-century method for mashed winter squash, written for cooks who bought squash by the barrel and stored it in a cellar. The instructions are sound; the main adjustment is to stop the squash from waterlogging.
- Boiling versus roastingBoiling until the pieces "break" leaves winter squash watery. Halving and roasting the squash cut-side down at 400F until collapsing, then scooping out the flesh, gives a similar puree with more flavour.
- If you do boilUse a shallow depth of salted water and keep the lid on so the squash part-steams. Butternut, kabocha or Hubbard cut into 1-inch pieces takes roughly 15-25 minutes depending on age and density.
- "Pared, if old"The skin of a young squash softens in cooking; a cured winter squash has a rind that will not break down. Hubbard and kabocha rind is easier removed after cooking than before.
- The colander stepThis is the hinge of the recipe. Pressing the mash through a colander or coarse sieve removes fibrous strands and gives the smooth texture the book is after. A ricer or food mill does the same job faster; a food processor makes it gluey.
- Drying the puréeDrying the puree -- "Boil them a little longer" is probably a matter of driving off water. Returning the mash to a dry pan over low heat for a few minutes, stirring, concentrates the flavour.
- SeasoningA "small quantity of butter" for a medium squash is about 2 tablespoons. Salt generously; winter squash is sweet enough that it tastes flat when underseasoned.
- Storage adviceThe note about freezing still holds. Whole winter squash keeps for months at 50-55F in a dry place, but once chilled below about 40F the flesh breaks down and rots quickly, so the refrigerator is the wrong place for an uncut squash.
- YieldA 3 lb winter squash gives roughly 4 cups of purée, enough for six as a side dish.
Cassell's flags this as "an American recipe" because winter squash was, to a British reader of the period, still a distinctly transatlantic vegetable. Squashes and pumpkins are New World species of Cucurbita, domesticated in Mesoamerica and taken up early by colonists; the word itself comes from a Narragansett term, generally given as askutasquash. Britain grew vegetable marrows and field pumpkins, and the entry spends as much space on storage as on cooking. The advice that a frozen squash "loses its flavour and is apt to decay" is the practical knowledge of a household with a root cellar rather than a cold store, and it remains accurate.