Few dishes are as simple to make, and as delicious to eat. Simply cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and muck in the center cavity. Spray a heavy pan with 1/2 inch sides with cooking spray or brush with some vegetable oil. Place the squash cut side down onto the pan and place it in a pre-heated 400F oven for some 40-50 minutes until the edges have nicely caramelized and the flesh of the squash is soft and fully cooked.
For this particular batch of squash, I melted 1/3 cup of butter and added several tablespoons of good maple syrup and set this aside. Once the squash were done, take them out of the oven, carefully flip them over (they will be soft) and brush them with the butter and maple syrup mixture. Sprinkle some salt and ground pepper to taste. I added all the rest of the butter into the “wells” of each squash half, but you may choose to be less calorific. Put this back into the oven for another 10 minutes and it’s ready to serve. Excellent as a side dish to some roasted chicken.
If you don’t have maple syrup, others like to make this by mixing butter and some good brown sugar (muscovado would be perfect). Either way it tastes brilliant. The squash is substantial but creamy and soft. It has flavor and the butter and syrup provide richness and sweetness. Yum. If you wanted a vegetarian meal, this along with a nice green salad would be perfect lunch or dinner fare. And at PHP80 for a medium sized squash, or PHP40 per serving plus the other ingredients, it is quite economical!
Other uses for butternut squash soup would include a wonderful butternut squash risotto, raviolis stuffed with butternut squash, butternut squash soup, and even a mixed grilled butternut squash salad…
47 Responses
Love all kinds of squash. Should try this out as it is very much available in any grocery store here in the US.Looks so yummy to look at.
hi MM!
i love this simple recipe as well. next time i’d try it with maple syrup like you just did. I only used brown sugar and butter before…like how i’d eat it with camote and cassava.
my kind of food!
Looks delish!
Butternut squash also makes great ginataang calabasa. I also have a recipe for butternut squash casserole that’s similar to a sweet potato casserole, sort of “custardy” and sweet and goes great with roast turkey on your Thanksgiving table.
MM, if you have any leftovers (which I doubt very much!), the roasted squash makes excellent VINAIGRETTE. I make and bottle as one of my give-aways a PUMPKIN-RAISIN vinaigrette. But since I have winter squashes now( and every year!)coming out of my ears, I use it to make the salad dressing…No one who tastes it can believe it is made out of squash!
MM…pasensiya na but I would like to tell others here in the Tri-Cities of my discovery…the BIGGEST EVER BLUEBERRY THAT I HHAVE EVER PICKED!!!!!….Onie, Keiko, Pinky, Zoi, Proteinshake, CWID
to be continued..naputol na naman….Manok at iba pa…It is not just random berries that are huge but ALL THE BERRIES! I was so excited, it felt like being let loose in a toy store…didn’t know which aisle to go! Get this….1 berry measures between 2 to 2.5cm…it is organic, no spray! and they are alll very, very, very sweet and will continue to do so while the weather is hot!
Give me a holler if you guys want to go picking here in the Tri-Cities…we’ll make blueberry pies, crumb bars, corn-blueberry salsa at iba pa!!!
Simplicity at its best!
I cook acorn squash the same way – sometimes I add crumbled bacon to the center filling & it’s a nice winter meal by itself.
Swiss chard, I trim & clean leaves & stalk, cut the stalks up, quickly saute in EVOO w garlic slices; then add chicken broth – home made or canned & simmer for maybe 20-30 minutes or until stalks are tender. S&P to taste & add some more EVOO to each soup bowl.
But I’ve never really cooked celeriac or cardoons. For the latter saw this saveur webpage (illustrated):
https://www.saveur.com/article/Mise-en-Place/Preparing-Cardoons
and here’s one for celeriac:
https://allthingssicilianandmore.blogspot.com/2009/07/sedano-rapa-celeriac.html
About 2 weeks ago, I also saw buttrernut squash and celeriac at the vegetable section of South Supermarket in Alabang.Just inspected them since I dont know what to do with them but happy to see they’re available now in the market since I do come across them once in a while in some recipes from imported magazines.
Roasted like this is one of my favorite ways to eat squash! I can imagine how lovely it would be with butternut squash…try tossing some nuts (like pecans) into the maple butter mixture, yum (I tried it with nuts but with regular sqush and honey and it was delicious)! It’s also nice to make a little gratin in the hollowed out bowl of the butternut squash :)
love butternut squash especially in the fall…ang bango when baking! love making it as a soup too :) when i’m missing Filipino food, we saute it with onions, shrimp, green beans, a little bagoong and some coconut milk, top with crushed chicharon…perfect with white rice!
MM…take out your Gourmet magazine 2006. In there is a recipe for ROASTED SQUASH with Chile-Lime vinaigrette. Have you tried it? YOU HAVE GOT TO TRY IT!!!! Once you try cooking and eating squaash this way, you will be hooked. I tweaked it a bit by adding more honey to balance the flavours. Then I subbed chipotle (taking outthe seeds ) so it lends to a smoky understones! Then I brushed it while cooking the last 20 minutes to intensify the flavours…then drizzled more after baking it.
Since butternut squash has quite a tough shell unlike the acorns, I would peel it and cut them into wedges and bake.
Sorry…I forgot…Oct. 2006 Gourmet magazine.
a simple dish but looks delicious..
NAMIT!
Gosh, those pictures of the butternut squash sure looked delicious. I will certainly try it with maple syrup.
bettyq, I love blueberries and I go picking here in Lynden. I found a farm last year that had gorgeous berries. I have yet to go check it out this year. Just finishing up the berries I picked last year.
MM, thanks for being so generous and allowing exchanges between posters.
Bettyq, thanks for your invitation to TriCities. That’s amazing—I wish you could post pictures of your harvest. Maybe you can post these on flickr and send us a link?
Looks soo good! I think I better go to SM and buy some butternut squash. I’m sure everyone in the household would love it! Thanks MM!!
Hi MM! Where did you get the squash here in Manila? They never have butternut. :( Yum!!!
Shoemart Makati, ground floor lobby… it was mentioned in a previous post when I discovered the vegetables…
Is this a case of Shoemart redeemed in MM’s eyes? Kidding aside, nice to know we can grow these veggies here in the Philippines.
I bought the last two pieces of butternut squash today (P98 for the two), no more chard or anything else left :( I was so ready to make a minestrone with chard… Did the lady mention how often dizon restocks?
Btw, I used a big cart so i could line up at the big cart lane, even if I wasn’t buying a lot of stuff. True enough, some basket people lined up behind me and the bagger boy made them put their baskets in a big cart so they could stay in line.
Can you make this on a stove top instead of an oven?
amee, i cook the butternut squash on a stove top and finish cooking them in the oven. i boil water with a little sugar and pinch of salt. then i add my cut up ( i shape them like diamond cut, and i do this, too, with kabocha). when cooked, i do like mm does… put butter, maple syrup or brown sugar on top of the cut up butternut and bake maybe 10-15 minutes. i sometimes sprinkle cinammon for added flavor. these are so good served together with roast turkey or beef.
thelma, yes, for some reason it tastes so thanksgivingly festive… great with a roast chicken too… and last night we had it with pan-fried pork chops! :) amee, you can cut it up and saute it, I guess, but the roasting seems to intensify the flavors and sweetness of the squash. myra-P, I have to admit, I rushed back the next day and bought 3 more, and friends who had dinner with us when the squash was served did the same, so there was a run on the veggies! And there was no more chard, celeriac etc the following day! I hope Dizon delivers a few times a week, though I suspect the best time to check is a Friday… Marketfan, we were in the lobby looking at discounted suitcases when Mrs. MM spotted the vegetables in the lobby stalls… hahaha. I hadn’t gone back into the grocery. Though I have to say, I wish Dizon would have picked S&R as their main distribution site instead… But for chard and squash, I’ll use a big cart and follow the dumb rules… :)
I love the combination of butternut squash and chickpeas (garbanzos). I’ve braised lamb with harissa, chickpeas, and butternut squash, served over couscous…lovely for a cold night. For a quick one-dish summer dinner try cubes of butternut squash, chickpeas, and cauliflower florets (nuts optional) tossed with some olive oil and quickly roasted in a hot oven. Butternut squash is so flavourful that it’s a great base for meatless meals.
Last year a seed from a butternut squash sprouted in my compost heap and grew to be one MONSTER vine! Even though I hadn’t planned to grow any last year, we had an abundance of squash! :)
the braised lamb served over couscous sounds good, kurzhaar…
MM, hooray for big cart people.
myra_p, hahaha. I should stand at the entry to the grocery for half an hour and encourage everyone to get big carts to clog up the aisles and speed them along their way when they check out. :)
found this: https://video.about.com/gourmetfood/Butternut-Squash-Creme-Brulee.htm
Hello MarketMan,
Will this recipe work on our regular squash? Is the flavor of butternut squash really all that much different from the local squash varieties? I’ve never tried butternut squash so I’m not sure.
Sarap naman! Just a quick question, where can you buy real maple syrup? The supermarkets near my area dont have it…just maple-flavored syrup.
To Thumbbook: Don’t know if you are in the USA. If you are, high end groceries should carry real maple syrup. If you have a Trder Joe near, try them. If not search online for the source or go to some gourmet site like Williams Sonoma.
Drizzle melted dark chocolate for over the top dessert. Pumpkin and any kind of squash including butternut goes well with dark chocolate for dessert.
hey guys.
thanks for answering my question. i’ll experiment when I get the chance.
Jelo: it is not so much the flavour that is different but the texture. The local ccalabaza is akin to the kabocha here or the buttercup. The next best variety to make Roasted squash is ACORN. Another one to try is GOLDEN NUGGET.
The kabocha, buttercup and other subspecies of this variety has a drier texture than say…pumpkin. However, when I want to make Roasted squash but no butternuts yet that I can pick, I pick the buttercup that is not fully mature yet….like the stem hasn’t turned brown yet and I can still pierce the skin with my thumbnail.
Did not bother with this gourd before but tried it after reading your post. I brushed olive oil and baked it in the oven but not for 40 minutes. I think it was only 20 or 30 minutes. Then I sauted chopped onions, garlic, lean ground beef, seasoned it with soy sauce and pepper, piled it on the squash and garnished it with parsley and basil and it was DELICIOUS! Thanks Marketman.
Why do you suggest S&R as Dizon’s main distribution site? We all know that you have to pay membership fees just to patronize S&R stores. Not everyone would want to pay those fees. If Dizon’s products are only available at S&R then won’t that deprive non-members of their products? You sound so elitist. I can see your real character now. What have you got against SM Supermarket? Sure,they have their faults at times but they try to rectify them. I’m not a paid hack of SM. I’m just an ordinary consumer and a regular reader of this blog.
nohiddenagenda, I only suggest S&R for selfish reasons, as I tend to do much of our grocery shopping there, as many readers of this blog are familiar. Besides, any intelligent enough consumer who factors in their PHP700+ annual fee into their grocery bill will find that it might be MUCH cheaper to shop at S&R than at other groceries such as SM or Rustans in the long run, depending on total expenditure… I don’t mind at all that Dizon sells at SM, but since i was talking to the lady that manages dizon, I was surprised when she said they chose SM for veggies, and their own outlets for fruit as the main distribution points. I also suggest S&R, as they have ample refrigerated sections and thus the veggies are treated better before buyers purchase them. Chard isn’t left out in the open to wilt in the warm air (albeit airconditioned in the lobby of SM) and has to be rehydrated to look a lot better. I have nothing against SM besides their stupid cart/basket rules that I have written about before. Oh, and their non-people friendly employment policies of churning staff every 5.9 months. Oh, and please, let’s not go down the elitist path again, it’s tiresome and so overused at this point. My views on elitism are on a post years ago. And really, am I to assume you are such a wizard so as to divine nuances of one’s character by knowing where I prefer to do my groceries? Hahaha. Tsk. tsk. I NEVER said Dizon should ONLY use S&R, that is your conclusion, and A DUMB one not based on fact. Dizon should sell in as many outlets as they like, the more the merrier. The veggies I featured from dizon are EXTRAORDINARY as far as the local veggie scene is at the moment. And as such, they are also premium priced relative to local equivalents kalabasa vs. butternut, celery vs. celeriac or even cardoons, pechay vs. chard… so, if as you say you are an ordinary consumer, with ordinary needs, why would you be so hot and bothered by where EXTRAORDINARY veggies are made available for sale? Maybe you need to eat more vegetables so you don’t get so hung up on who is an elitist or not… :) And just in case in you are wondering, I shop at S&R, Metro Market!Market!, the market outdoors at Market!Market!, Rustan’s, SM, Landmark, Cash & Carry, Unimart, the FTI Taguig Saturday Market, The Seaside Market at Baclaran, Salcedo Market, Legazpi Market, rarely due to distance at Farmer’s Market, Lung center Sunday Market, Divisoria 2-3x a year, Binondo, The Carbon in Cebu on occasion, the Tabuan or dried fish market in Cebu and markets in all the major and minor towns that I get to visit in my travels. Many of them I have featured on this blog. They are high end, low end, retail, wholesale, produce, seafood and others… so please don’t be so sure you know me enough to conclude anything based on where I choose to get my supplies. If you don’t like what you read, go read something else.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
Oh lordy, another fishpan in the works.
Both you and Lori wrote about butternut squash! And with few exceptions, roast b/nut squash! Talk about koinkidinks.
Your photo made me crave MM! Now I have to find a way to conveniently go to SM Makati, aargh…and just so you know, I tried your Okra with Aligue and it tastes ‘refreshingly different’, I like it! I will post it on my newbie-blog soon (plugging, hehe). Hope you can visit. Thanks for sharing your recipes, much appreciated specially now that i’m trying to expand my very limited list of dishes :) Maybe you can post more 30-minute (or less) Meals for on-the-go moms like me.
Incidentally, kanina ko lang nabasa ‘yung tungkol kay dimaculangan—o, binanggit ko na, kasi, tila kulang ang comment kapag walang name-dropping, hahahaha. I didn’t want to comment on that blog because it is such an old issue. Then, reading about the butternut squash…voila! Elitismo, mismo! I love all kinds of gourds and I used to eat the flowers and young shoots, too…Like betty_q, I am also in blueberry mode. I’ll be driving off to this forest southwest of Oslo for my annual blueberry picking (excited!)…Oh, we’ve been on a camping caravan tour along the old roads of Central Norway and found this charming store,up on the mountains on the way to Voss, selling all sorts of Scandinavian charcuterie. It was a delight to find that they don’t take credit cards (no signal at 1500 m osl), Then about 2 miles along the road (it’s Route 13), a cottage selling goat’s cheese!!! Then the unthinkable happened, we were out of cash. Who says Visa, Diners, Mastercard, or the mighty American Express can get you everything?
Baka si NOHIDDENAGENDA ay si dimaculangan, ‘di kaya?
Betty Q, thanks for responding. If by texture you mean that our local calabazas are more fibrous then I think I understand why people prefer the butternut. I think the Parco at Quezon Ave has some butternut squash or acorn squash, I will go check there and try this recipe out.
MarketMan, it’s unfortunate but you will always be accused of being an elitist simply because you feature some high-end places (I would hardly consider S&R high-end though). Some people just see the world through a very small peep-hole and are quite myopic to boot. Have a laugh and don’t let them rile you up.
Nohiddenagenda, e kung sa naiinis siya (MM) sa service ng SM, ganon talaga. Kung may ibang mapupuntahan maliban sa SM para bumili, bakit hindi? Wag kang mainis dahil yung preferrence ng tao hindi “masa”. Gusto niya lang mag-share sa blog niya, hindi niya sinabing wag kang bumili don.
I actually saw Bob Blumer do this recipe back when TLC was still running his show the Surreal Gourmet. He paired this with duck confit. It looked really yummy!