Something Old, Something New

From earlier in the spring, a couple of dishes celebrating the first asparagus of the year and the final butternut squash from winter storage, "Something Old, Something New."

The first dish took full advantage of a rare sunny spring day to grill both the asparagus and the butternut squash, giving them a nice char that works against the sweetness of the scallops. Garnishes are a quick sweet chile sauce and Korean chile threads known as sil-gochu.

Scallops with Grilled Asparagus, Grilled Butternut, Sweet Chile Sauce, and Chile Threads

Grilling the Veg

Black Steel Gives a Perfect Sear Every Time

Sweet Chile Sauce (Agave, Sambal, Salt)

The second dish came on the following night when the weather turned back to its usual rainy springtime norm, making us want something warm and comforting, the genesis of the butternut lentils, a batch of brown lentils cooked with cubes of the bell of the butternut, the leftover bits that I couldn't slice for the grill the evening before. The salad is shaved raw asparagus dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.

King Salmon, Butternut Lentils, and Shaved Asparagus Salad

Tacos de Calabaza

It's no secret that we love tacos and we love really tasty vegetarian food, so I've been making a lot of vegetarian tacos: rajas con crema, grilled vegetable, spaghetti squash and black bean, and now, butternut squash and poblano pepper.

I thought of these orange and green tacos some weeks ago but I hadn't committed the time to roast butternut squash cubes until yesterday. The idea came from a vegetarian green chile with butternut that I made about the beginning of December. I knew the sweet roasted flavor of the squash would pair tremendously with the mildly spicy earthy flavor of the poblanos. The result was wicked good.

Tacos de Calabaza: Butternut Squash and Poblano

To make the taco filling, I cubed and roasted a butternut, then made a quick sauté of large dice of poblano, diced red onion, sliced green onion, minced garlic, and minced cilantro stems, with just a hint of ground mild Numex chile. I added the squash to the sauté and seasoned it before serving it on corn tortillas with chipotle adobo, cotija cheese, and cilantro leaves. Keeper!

Chile Verde con Calabaza

It's not a big secret that I love poblano peppers, the large dark green mild chiles from central Mexico, now grown all over and available in most American grocery stores. I discovered poblanos a long time ago as a young man while living in Texas, an opportunity that dramatically expanded my culinary horizons and firmly cemented my love of Mexican food.

I was a poor graduate student living on a $650 per month stipend for teaching undergraduates at Texas A&M. My apartment was $400 per month, so you can imagine that making ends meet on $250 per month was difficult. It forced me to shop where the day laborers shopped, at the bodegas and mercados, and to eat what they ate: lots of beans and tortillas. But it also gave me the opportunity to learn about cilantro, cumin, nopales, dried chiles, tomatillos, posole, menudo, and not least of all, poblanos, all of which I got to taste and cook for the first time in Texas.

When I tasted poblanos for the first time, I was struck by their essential pepper flavor, deep with just a hint of spice, but﹘and here's the payoff for me﹘none of the grassy, bitter, pyrazine flavors that we associate with bell peppers. I don't really care for those flavors in a cooked bell pepper and worse still, like a lot of folks, I despise them when I keep tasting them all night long. For me, poblanos are a glorious solution to that problem and I have not been without them since discovering them.

In the mid-1980s when I moved to the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, poblanos were hard to find, unlike today when they are a staple at most groceries. The situation improved by the 1990s when they started making appearances in large groceries, even out in the rural Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I lived at the time. And by the time I started my restaurant in 2002, they were common. Poblano peppers were the only mild green pepper that I used at the restaurant.

And it was at the restaurant when my love affair with poblanos and chile verde really bloomed. We would change the menu daily in response to what our farmers were bringing us. And to make use of the vast quantities of tomatillos and poblanos that we would get in late summer, chile verde was a regular feature on the menu and for staff meals. Diners would probably never recognize the unctuous and delicious green sauce garnishing their plates as chile verde, but there it was nonetheless.

Suffice it to say that when summer slips into fall and brings out the annual hankering for soups and stews, my thoughts run to chile verde. A few weeks ago when I made yet another batch of chile verde, I saw a butternut squash on the counter, pretty typical for this time of year, and thought that it would make a terrific vegetarian chile verde. Ann and I are trying to reduce the amount of meat that we eat without compromising on flavor and I had the idea that really hard roasted butternut could in part take the place of meat. Hence the chile verde con calabaza experiment.

Chile Verde con Calabaza

Garlic, Green Onions, Cilantro, Onions, Poblanos

Cooking the Vegetables

Roasted Butternut Squash

There are a couple of ways to make chile verde, at least. Sometimes, I will put all the vegetables (onions, poblanos, garlic cloves, and tomatillos) on sheet trays and roast them to concentrate their flavors. Then I will add them to broth and make the stew. This is typically the approach I take when working with fresh tomatillos, which are a thing of the past at this time of the year.

Other times, such as this time, I will sauté the vegetables directly in the soup pot and use canned tomatillos. I will rinse the tomatillos and put them back in the can with water or stock and blend them with my stick blender to form the soup base.

Butternut squash can be insipid or delicious. It is really bland when lightly cooked, but like many things, it concentrates and develops deep complex flavors when really roasted. It takes a long time in the oven to achieve the level of concentration of the squash that you see in the photo above. This squash roasted in a hot oven 400-425F) for an hour and a quarter. After all that water evaporates from the squash, you will have about a third as much squash by weight and volume as you started with.

Chile Verde con Calabaza

The following recipe feeds about four people. It fed the two of us quite well, with leftovers for lunch the day following.

1 large butternut squash, about 5 pounds

6 poblanos, chopped

3 yellow onions, chopped

1 bunch of cilantro, chopped, stems chopped fine

1 bunch of green onions, sliced

8 cloves garlic, minced

1 28-ounce can of whole tomatillos

2 quarts of vegetable stock or water (or meat stock if you prefer)

1 teaspoon Mexican oregano

salt to taste

6 corn tortillas, chopped

Cube the butternut squash and put on an oiled sheet tray in a hot oven (425F), turning every 15-20 minutes until the squash browns on all surfaces. It will take an hour or longer. You should not rush this step as it is critical for the development of flavor.

In a large soup pot, sauté the poblanos, onions, cilantro, green onions, and garlic until the onions turn transparent.

Drain and rinse the tomatillos. You can add them directly to the soup pot as-is or you can blend or chop them, your choice. It takes longer for whole tomatillos to break down, so I like to speed things up and to obliterate the skins by blending. I put them back in the can and cover them with water, then roughly blend them directly in the can with my immersion blender, leaving some texture. You can always throw them in the regular blender or chop them with a knife.

Add the tomatillos and stock/water to the pot and rub the the oregano between your palms over the pot to break it down.

Let the stew simmer gently for 45 minutes to an hour to meld the flavors. Season to taste and add the tortillas. Cook for an additional 15-20 minutes to break down the tortillas which will thicken the stew. You can always use fresh or dried masa as a thickener. And you don't have to thicken at all if you want more of a soup than a stew.

Ten minutes before service, add the butternut squash to the pot to warm back through. It is important that you not cook the squash for longer or it will start to break down. Breaking down is OK if you want to make an orange squash soup, but for a green stew with discrete chunks of roasted squash, less cooking is more.

Chickpea and Roasted Butternut Squash Chili

Every now and again, I come up with a dish that is truly wonderful. I can only take credit for the execution, but not the idea. In point of fact, Ann asked me to make her chili with chickpeas and butternut squash, so I grabbed a decent-sized squash on my last trip to the farmers market. This recipe is a definite keeper. We really enjoyed it.

Chickpea and Roasted Butternut Squash Chili

This dish comes together in minutes once you have roasted the butternut squash, which you can do well in advance, even a day or two.

Roast Squash Until Caramelized

The trick to working with butternut squash is to concentrate its flavor by removing a lot of the water that it contains, otherwise it is pretty boring and will just dilute your dish. And fresh squash like I was working with are wetter than squash that have overwintered. Don't be shy about roasting your squash until it takes on good color as you can see above. This took an hour in a hot (400F) oven. I did a post earlier on how to cube butternut squash, if you need a refresher.

When roasting squash, patience is your friend, but be certain to toss the squash every 15 minutes or so such that all sides get a chance to cook. I cooked these on a dry sheet tray because I didn't want to add additional fat, but tossing the squash in a little oil before roasting will help them caramelize.

Chili Veg: Poblano, Onion, Cilantro Stems, Garlic

Sautéed Veg with Chili Spices

Start your chili by sautéeing the onion, poblano, garlic, and cilantro stems. If you read my recipes, you will see that I always call for sautéeing cilantro stems in the mix. The stems are more flavorful than the leaves and they are well suited to a mirepoix or soffrito. Please don't throw them away.

Once the onions have turned translucent, add the cumin and chile powder and cook for a minute or two before adding the water, roasted squash, and chickpeas.

Cook for about 10 minutes, season to taste, and serve. You can make yours as dry or as wet as you like. I decided to make this version fairly dry as I was not serving it over anything to sop up the broth.

Chickpea and Butternut Squash Chili

The procedure is outlined above, but I will recap it below. For four portions, use the quantities below. It takes a lot of squash. Because squash is mainly water, it is going to shrink a lot during cooking.

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 large poblano, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced

stems of one bunch of cilantro, minced 

1 tablespoon freshly ground cumin
1 ounce ground mild chile (I use Numex)
1 quart water or vegetable stock
3 pounds of butternut squash cubes, roasted
3 pounds of cooked chickpeas
salt to taste

Film a large pan with oil and sauté the onion, poblano, garlic, and cilantro until the onion is translucent, about five minutes.

Add the cumin and chile powder and cook for another minute or so to get rid of the raw flavors of the spices.

Add the water, roasted squash, and chickpeas and cook for about 10 minutes at a simmer to let all the flavors come together.

Season and serve.

Kitchen Basics: Cubing Butternut Squash

When you want cubes of winter squash for a dish, go for butternut because of its high yield (flesh to seed ratio) and its ease of handling. Because winter squashes are hard, they are difficult to cube, so most of the oddly shaped ones end up baked, with the cooked flesh scooped out with a spoon. Butternut is the easiest of all to cut because the neck is smooth and solid flesh. Still, without a plan, they can be difficult to work with. Here are the basics of cubing a butternut.

1. Cut out the Neck

For butternut squash that you are going to cube, try to buy ones with necks that are roughly the same diameter from the top down to the bell. Cut off the top where the squash attaches to the vine, cutting straight across. Likewise, on the other end slice straight through to cut off the bell that contains the seeds. Reserve the bell for soup or some other application. It is good squash, but because of its shape, it will not cube well.

2. Peel the Neck

Stand the neck vertically and using a knife (serrated works wonders for this), peel off the rind in strips.

3. Slice off a Slab to Make a Stable Base

The trick to safely cutting any odd-shaped foodstuff is to make yourself a flat, stable base that you can lay on your cutting board. A flat surface will not rock when you cut. This is critical with hard foods such as winter squash where you are going to have to use a little muscle to make the cut.

In the photo, you see that I took a slab off the side. The safest way to make this cut is with the neck standing vertically. If you try to make it with the squash laying horizontally on the cutting board, be very careful that it does not rock.

4-5. Slab and Cut into Strips

Rotate the barrel of the squash so that the now-flat side is down against the cutting board. Continue to cut it into slabs the width of the cubes that you want to make.

Once you have cut the squash into slabs, cut each slab into strips the width of the cubes that you want to make. Once you get the hang of it and are confident about your knife work, you can stack two or three slabs before cutting strips, as long as the stacked slabs are stable and do not rock.

6. Cut into Cubes

The last step is to gather as many strips as you feel comfortable cutting at one time and make the final cuts to turn them into cubes.

Dinner with Dan, Yael, and Naama

Sunday evening we went out into the north part of the county to have dinner with Dan and Yael Ben-Daat and their daughter Naama. Carter went with us, making our party six. In 18 months, Yael has most industriously carved a large organic garden and orchard out of what was nothing before and she supplies us things at the restaurant that other growers don't grow: chickpeas, artichokes, borage, and so forth. She wanted us to come see her farm, of which she is obviously and justifiably proud, and so kindly invited us to dinner. It took about a nanosecond to agree to come: people who are willing to cook for a chef are few and far between. Most people miss the part that chefs pretty much eat anything and are not at all critical when other people are cooking for them: it's such a rare treat.

Artichoke in Bloom

Chickpeas (tiny green pod upper left)

When we arrived, we got the grand tour of the gardens and orchards and then went into to a huge three-course feast. It is clear that Yael and Naama love cooking and that they had been at it all day. We started with a beautifully arranged appetizer plate (enough for a whole meal!) of shredded cucumber salad, a moussaka of venison (from the back yard), and a pattypan squash stuffed with mushrooms. I would have been very satisfied to stop there, but then they started bringing platter after platter of dinner from the kitchen to the dining room.

Smoked Turkey in Pastry

How gorgeous is this smoked turkey breast coated with sun-dried tomato pesto and wrapped in pastry? Dan smoked the turkey himself and it was very moist and delicious. If I weren't so full, I could have eaten a lot more than the half slice that I did eat.

Roasted Veg, Yum!

These roasted vegetables were awesome! I love roasted vegetables of any kind and these all scattered with cloves of roasted garlic were amazing. My favorites were the beets, but there were also butternut squash, three colors of potato, sweet potato, and broccoli. I loved them all.

Wheat Berries, Roasted Beans and Tomatoes

I could have gorged on this platter of wheat berries, roasted green beans, and roasted tomatoes but I just didn't have the room. Somehow I failed to get a picture of the big pot of braised lamb that had cooked for a long time. For dessert, we had profiteroles stuffed with ice cream along with chocolate and caramel sauces and fresh berries.

I would be very remiss if I did not mention the gorgeous condiment sauce that Yael made from tahini, garlic, cilantro, and parsley, sort of hummus meets chimichurri. This dinner reminded me how much I like this sauce on falafel. Outstandingly delicious and I definitely plan to make some soon!

Dan, Yael, and Naama, thank you for your gracious hospitality! תודה לכם