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Baked Squash
Peel and slice the squash into pieces about ½ inch thick. Place slices in the bottom of a large bread pan. Dot each slice with a generous piece of butter; strew honey over squash, 1 teaspoon to each slice; then pour in enough hot water to cover the bottom of the pan.
After cooking on the top of the range for 10 or 15 minutes, turn each slice with a knife and boil until tender. More hot water may have to be added. Place the pan in the oven and let the squash take on a delicate brown. Serve at once after removing from the pan.
A two-stage vegetable dish: the squash is first braised on the stovetop, then finished under dry heat to glaze. The unusual part is that it all happens in one pan, so choose the pan for both jobs.
- "12 inch thick"This is a printer's or scanner's loss of the fraction bar: read it as 1/2 inch thick. Half-inch slices braise through in the stated 10 to 15 minutes; anything approaching an inch will not.
- What "bread pan" meansA metal baking pan of the period. From the recipe's "large" and the single layer of slices, this is likelier a large rectangular pan than a narrow loaf pan. Use any heavy metal or cast-iron roasting pan or ovenproof skillet that can go directly over a burner and then into the oven; glass and ceramic bakeware cannot.
- Which squashA firm winter squash is intended — the sort you peel and slice into rounds or slabs. Butternut, buttercup or kabocha all work. Summer squash releases too much water and collapses before it browns.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives none because the squash is already cooked; the oven only colors it. Use 425–450F on an upper rack, or the broiler with the pan watched closely. Five to ten minutes is usually enough.
- The hinge: cook the water awayBefore the pan goes in the oven, the liquid should have reduced to a syrupy film of butter and honey. If water is still standing, it will steam rather than brown and the glaze never forms. Let it boil off.
- Honey quantityA teaspoon per slice is generous by modern taste, especially on an already sweet butternut. Half that gives a glaze without dessert sweetness.
- Turning the slicesHalf-cooked squash tears easily. A wide spatula does better than the knife specified, and the slices hold their shape if they sit in a single layer rather than overlapping.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; it depends entirely on the size of pan and squash. Serve straight from the heat as directed -- the glaze stiffens and dulls as it cools.
Bride's cookbooks were a publishing category from roughly the 1890s through the 1930s: compact volumes given as wedding presents, aimed at a young woman setting up a kitchen with no one at her elbow, which may be why the instructions here are so procedural about turning each slice and adding more hot water. The dish itself belongs to the American tradition of sweetening winter squash rather than treating it as a savory vegetable -- the same instinct that produces maple-glazed squash and squash pie. Honey browns readily under dry heat, which is exactly what the final trip to the oven exploits. Cooking on top of the range and finishing in the oven would also have been practical on a wood or coal stove, where the firebox was always hot but the oven took managing.