Festive Butternut Squash Roast
Photos mariewiik1
This beautiful main dish not only looks stunning as a centre piece for Christmas Day, if ticks all the boxes for your vegetarian guests. It’s filled with ingredient’s and flavours that we associate with Christmas and it tastes amazingly good. If you leave out the creamy blue cheese it will be suitable for a vegan duet also. The crispy outer shell of the squash and the soft inside flesh combined with the stuffing gives a variation of textures that just melt in the mouth. I made this dish for a dinner party last weekend and it certainly went down a treat. Obviously you can substitute any I greffent you don’t like and add something with a similar texture. It’s beautiful with a hot cranberry and orange sauce. We also ate it with lingonberry, having a Scandinavian in the house. It’s just simply divine. I urge you to give it a go as a midweek dinner or for the big festive day.
Happy cooking
N x
Festive Butternut Squash Roast
Ingredients
Serves: 8 \ Prep: 20 mins \ Oven Temp: 200C Fan/Gas Mark 7 \ Cook: 1 hr 30 minutes approx
1 large butternut squash, washed and cut in half right down the middle
50g stale sourdough breadcrumbs
1 vacuum packed packet or a tin (drained) of Puy lentils
2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 lemon, grated zest only
2 medium leeks, finely sliced
2/3 shallots, finely chopped
1 packet of vacuum packed chestnuts finely chopped
3/4 sun dried tomatoes, chopped finely
250g vegetarian blue cheese, cubed
100g fresh sprouts, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
Pinch of sea salt
Good grind of black pepper
You will need three pieces of cooking string to go round the squash, plus a few pieces of tin foil and a roasting tin.
Method
Pre-heat the oven Fan 200C Gas Mark 7
Start by preparing the squash. Once you’ve cut the squash in a half, make a few cuts all the way along the two squash halves starting from the end with the hole/seeds to create a little gully, then scoop out the squash filling. This will be the cavity you will stuff with your festive filling.
Chop the squash flesh evenly.
In a large pan add the squash flesh, chopped leeks, sprouts, shallots, butter and olive oil and sautéed for five minutes or until its softened. Then add the garlic, thyme, lentils, sun dried tomatoes, chestnuts and combine, cook for a few minutes further.
Remove from the heat, leave to cool slightly then add the fresh parsley, breadcrumbs, seasoning, lemon zest and blue cheese. Mix thoroughly and fill both cavities in your squash halves.
Lay across your roasting tin three pieces of string evenly placed.
Carefully sit one half of the squash on top of the string, top with the other half of the squash, don’t worry if some of your filling falls out as you can cook this separately. Wrap the string around the squash and tie tightly, cut off the loose ends.
Add scrunched up tinfoil either side of the squash to stop it rolling over while cooking. Add a little olive oil over the top, I used a drizzle from the sun dried tomatoes, add a scattering of thyme leaves.
Turn the heat down to 180C Fan/Gas Mark 6, cook until the squash until golden and soft, approx 90 minutes, if it starts to brown too quickly, cover with tinfoil and turn the heat down.
You can cook the extra leftover stuffing for 20 minutes in a separate roasting tin or until its crispy on top, as a side dish of stuffing.
Serve sliced, with extra stuffing and plenty of vegetable sides if its for Christmas Day, add a hot cranberry or lingonberry sauce.
Enjoy
N x
