Home › Game › Steamed Squash Served in the Shell
Steamed Squash Served in the Shell
Saw off the top of a Hubbard squash and steam the rest until tender. Scoop out the pulp, mash the rest of the soft portion and pass through a vegetable sieve. Season well with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of sugar and butter; reheat, return to the shell, and score the dome-shaped surface with a knife. Serve the squash upon a doily placed on a serving-dish. This is a most attractive vegetable.
A straightforward vegetable presentation whose only real difficulty is the size of a Hubbard squash and the vagueness of its seasoning. Read the wording carefully before you start: the instructions contradict themselves slightly.
- The confusing wording"Scoop out the pulp" most likely means the seeds and stringy fibre, since "the rest of the soft portion" is the cooked flesh you actually eat. Remove seeds first, then scrape the flesh from the shell walls, leaving the shell intact enough to stand as a serving vessel.
- Hubbard squash sizeA whole Hubbard commonly runs 8 lb and up, and often will not fit a domestic steamer. Buy the smallest one you can find, or substitute a 3-4 lb kabocha or buttercup; the shell needs to be firm-walled and sit flat.
- Steaming timeA small whole squash takes 45 minutes to over an hour above simmering water, topped up as it evaporates. It is done when a skewer slides through the wall without resistance but the shell still holds its shape — over-steamed and it collapses when you fill it.
- Vegetable sieveA conical sieve or drum sieve pressed with a wooden pestle. A food mill on the fine plate does the same job faster; a ricer works too. Avoid a food processor, which over-works the flesh into a slack purée rather than a fluffy one.
- Seasoning quantities"A teaspoonful of sugar and butter" is genuinely ambiguous — it may mean a teaspoon of each, or a teaspoon of the two combined. Either way it is very little for several pounds of squash; season to taste, and expect to want a tablespoon or more of butter.
- Reheating and fillingWarm the purée in a saucepan over low heat, stirring, before it goes back in. Hubbard holds a good deal of water; if the mash is loose, let it steam dry in the pan for a few minutes so the scored dome keeps its shape.
- Scoring the domeMound the purée above the rim and mark it in a diamond lattice with the back of a knife. If you want it browned, a few minutes under a hot broiler will set the pattern.
- The doilyA paper or linen doily on the platter, which may also have absorbed condensation from the hot shell. A folded napkin does the same and keeps the squash from sliding.
- YieldA 3-4 lb squash serves six to eight as a side dish; a full-sized Hubbard will feed a crowd.
Hubbard squash reached American seed catalogues in the mid-nineteenth century and, by the time this book was compiled, was often said to be among the leading winter squashes of Northern kitchens — hard-shelled, keepable for months in a cool cellar, and large enough that a single fruit fed a household repeatedly. That durable shell is what makes this recipe possible: unlike a summer squash, a Hubbard can have its top sawn off and still stand up as a bowl. Its placement in the Game section reflects how such books were organised around the whole meal rather than the single dish. The doily and the scored dome belong to the same period habit of dressing plain vegetables for the table, when presentation carried much of the work that sauces do now.