Southwestern corn and squash bake

Looking at the vegetables I have on hand this week, I knew I wanted to pair the squash and corn. I had a fair amount of Southwestern flavorings left over to work with and a chunk of mild white cheddar that was close enough to monterey jack. No real plan here; I just threw it all together in some vaguely sensible manner.

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
2 smallish yellow peppers, chopped
1/2 summer squash, thinly sliced
3 ears corn, stripped from their cobs
2 chipotles in adobo, chopped
equal amount of pickled jalapeños, chopped
6 ounces pulled brisket in faux barbecue sauce
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup double-cream white cheddar cheese, shredded
parmesan and bread crumbs to cover
salt and pepper and chili powder and cumin and oregano and hot sauce and such to taste

I heated the butter and olive oil in a dutch oven over medium heat until the the butter melted, sizzled and settled down. Then I threw in the onion and peppers with a pinch of salt and sweated them until they softened the the onion turned translucent. Then I added the squash with some spices and let it cook down while I harvested the corn from the cobs. After a few minutes I added the corn, turned the heat up a little and cooked for five minutes until the corn was just turning tender.

Then I took the pot off the heat and added the chipotle and pickled jalapeño, brisket (with its sauce) and cilantro, mixed well and poured out into an 8"x8" baking dish. After it had cooled a bit, I mixed in the cheddar and the eggs whisked into the milk and cream, adjusted the spices, topped with the mixed breadcrumbs and parmesan, covered with foil and baked at 350 degrees for a half hour, removed the foil and baked for 15 minutes more and then gave it five more minutes under the broiler.

Here's the result:
The structural integrity isn't quite where I'd like it; Next time, I'm mixing the bread crumbs in. But even if it falls apart into a bowlful of creamed corn, it's nicely rich and full of flavor. The corn is tender but still has a bit of crunch to it. It's sweetness, surprisingly pronounced, contrasts with the several different sorts of spiciness and the savory brisket. The acid from the pickled jalapeno (and the hot sauce) cuts through the richness. Kind of trashy I admit, but really pretty tasty. Could use more squash, though. And, I just now realized that I've got a can of black beans that I should have thrown it. That would have been pretty good too.

Chicken and squash chicharrones

Yes, I know those words don't make any sense together; bear with me a little while and I'll explain.

What I was actually making for dinner were just chicken chicharrones which aren't actually chicharrones either (although I have made the chicken equivalent of pork rinds just incidentally while rendering down chicken fat for schmaltz. They're called gribenes in Yiddish and they're not half bad.) These are deep-fried chicken nuggets common all through South America and the Philippines too (at least according to the commentary on the recipes I found. I really ought to go on a culinary tour of someplace someday and see these things for myself). They kind of look like pork rinds, at least the good sort you can get some places here in Miami, not the puffed up industrial ones in the supermarket.

Unsurprisingly, there's a good bit of variation in the recipes; I went with something on the Filipino end of things.

You can cut up a whole chicken, bones and all, but I just used two chicken thighs and saved the bones for stock. The marinade is made of equal parts soy sauce, rum and lime juice--one ounce each for that much chicken--a little sugar and, optionally, garlic, a couple dashes of hot sauce and/or cilantro. Marinate for an hour on the counter or overnight in the refrigerator (so long as you bring it back up to room temperature before cooking).

For the breading, mix 1/2 cup finely ground flour--corn flour (which is something distinct from corn starch I just learned) in South America typically or rice flour for the Filipino version. Into that half cup mix a half teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of whatever flavorings you want that didn't use in the marinade. I used garlic in the marinade so I added cayenne pepper and finely chopped cilantro to the flour.

Fish the chicken out of the marinade, shake and/or pat it dry, dredge it in the flour and fry it in the hot oil until golden brown. Some recipes call for shallow frying, some deep frying. There's also a pretty big range in cooking times--from six to twelve minutes. It all depends on how small you cut your pieces of chicken. I did mine no more than a couple inches across so I couldn't get them out of the oil fast enough. I slightly burnt most of them, but the last batch with the heat on low and only cooked for three minutes total came out OK.


As for the squash, I had both the marinade and the plenty of leftover flour mix and I wanted some vegetation with my dinner. I had chopped and frozen the squash a few weeks ago and I decided, given my problems controlling my oil temperature, it would be best to cook it without defrosting. I took a handful of squash pieces from the freezer, gave them a couple minutes in the marinade and then into the bag of flour for tossing without drying them off since I wanted a bit more of a batter than I was getting for the chicken. They got three minutes in the oil too and they came out looking pretty nice.



Both the chicken and the squash taste pretty good too, particularly finished with a squeeze of lime. The central ingredient and the breading are fairly equal partners with the seasonings present but not overbearing. There's a nice crunch when they're hot, but the flavors better when they've cooled off a bit. Cooking the squash from frozen was a good idea; it would have been mush if I had defrosted it first. As is, it's still got a little bite to it and a nice burst of flavor captured inside the breading. These aren't giant flavors that wow you with bite, but they're good bar food and I think that's all chicharrones of any sort are meant to be.

That said, there's a similar recipe for Bancock street fried chicken that looks like it might step things up a bit, but I need to get ahold of some coriander root to do it right. Have any of you seen that for sale?

CSA week four - Acorn squash/white chocolate/brown sugar ice cream

I came really close to not making this. Right after the holidays I'd have trouble finding an audience for any ice cream. Experimental stuff like this is just a waste of perfectly good food. But once I got the flavor combination in my head I wanted to at least try it out. I compromised by making only a half batch.

I started out by roasting the squash the same way as last time: cut in half and cleaned; 30 minutes at 350 degrees, covered, face down in a water bath; 15 minutes covered face up; and 15 minutes uncovered face up to finish. No stuffing, but I did use a dark brown sugar-butter glaze. When it was finished I scooped out the meat and mashed it up with the not-so-successful glaze that ended up puddled in the squash cavity.





I only needed a half cup for the small batch of ice cream so I mixed the rest with a handful of breadcrumbs and finely diced ham, onions and pepper to make fritters that didn't have quite the structural integrity one might wish for. I should have added an egg. Tasted pretty good, though.

As for the ice cream, I put
1 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 Tablespoons white chocolate
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
on the stove. I really only need everything melted and mixed, but I scalded the milk just on principle. No custard since I figure the cocoa butter and the squash should give plenty of body.

That, cooled a bit, went into the food processor with the half cup of acorn squash for a good blend. I thought I got it pretty smooth, but the final result is kind of gritty. I have a problem with that too frequently; I have to start straining my ice cream mixes more often. All the better recipes call for it.

I neglected to take a picture of the blended mix. It was beige. It also didn't have a lot of squash flavor probably because all those bits that will become grit later were lying at the bottom. Just white chocolate and brown sugar is pretty good. I'll have to make that without the squash sometime.

Here it is after churning. It thickened up pretty quickly, but, like I said, with some graininess. I pulled it a little early since it showed some signs that it might overharden. Things never turn out well if it goes past soft-serve texture in the churn.

I saved the squash seeds thinking I'd bake them up for a snack, but it occured to me that they might mix in well. I cleaned them, dried them off well, and tossed them with a few drops of oil, salt, more brown sugar and cinnamon before baking them at 375 for 15 minutes. That was a little too long, but they weren't so burnt that I couldn't claim I did it on purpose. They started popping like popcorn at around eight minutes. I probably should have pulled them out when they stopped.

The final product's not bad. The flavors blend nicely with the squash savory note on the more powerful caramel-esque of the brown sugar and white cocolate. And the seeds add a nice toastiness; the slightly burnt flavor is gone thankfully. There are textural issues though. It's a little gritty and, after a pleasing crunch, the seeds leave nasty chewy bits to deal with. So not an enitely unsuccessful experiment. I want to try a pumpkin pie topped with a white chocolate ganache. Someone remind me next Fall, please.

CSA week four - Ham stuffed acorn squash

Nothing particularly innovative here, but I did come up with my own stuffing mix that I think turned out well. Ham, cranberries and sage are a great match for squash.

Ingredients:
1 medium acorn squash
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
3/4 cup ham, finely chopped (I used a simple city-style ham that lacked smoky or sweet additions. I don't see smoked ham working too well in this dish. Honey or maple baked would, but you might want to reduce the sugar.)
5 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 Tablespoon dried cranberries, soaked for a half hour and roughly chopped
1 Tablespoon light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup dry breadcrumbs

0. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Cut squash in half top to bottom. Remove gunk. I saved the seeds for baking but that's certainly optional. Place the squash cut side down in a baking dish. Add 1/2 inch water. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium pan on medium heat. When it's stopped frothing add onion and ham and a pinch of salt. You want to sweat the onions, but you don't want the released liquids to evaporate so don't spread them out too much. When the onion is soft mix in the sage and cranberries. In a minute or so, when the pan becomes aromatic, mix in the sugar and allspice. When the sugar has dissolved sprinkle in the bread crumbs and remove the pan from the heat. Mix in the breadcrumbs until all of the liquid in the pan has been absorbed. Set aside.

3. Remove the pan from the oven, uncover and flip over the squash. Let cool five minutes. Pack stuffing into the squash, don't jam it in, but get a good bit in there and it's fine if it mounds up a bit. Sprinkle with a few pinches of brown sugar and recover.

4. Bake squash for 15 minutes at 350 degrees, remove foil cover and bake until tender. There's a lot of disagreement on how long this last stage should take and I don't know about you but my squash never seems to finish cooking. I realized this time around that that may be because the top dries out in a way that's not far texturally from undercooked and I can't tell the difference. Try 20 minutes uncovered and see how it goes.

I cut my squash unevenly so the smaller half was overcooked by the time the larger was done. There was probably a good ten minute difference in cooking times so chop carefully in that first step.

The stuffing dried out and got a little crispy on top which was nice. The flavors intensified to a bright salty and sweet that was a bit much on its own but tempered well by the mellow flavor of the squash.

The texture did end up a bit crumbly though so I'm thinking of maybe adding a binder, maybe an egg, next time. But then it would be a big meatball instead of proper stuffing. I suppose that's not necessarily a bad thing. Or maybe just packing it in a bit tighter would keep it from drying out so much. You guys have any advice?

CSA week two - Roasted butternut squash, sage and brown butter risotto

This recipe was inspired by a pasta with butternut squash and brown butter recipe from A Good Appetite--a resource you definitely should check out for ideas for using non-Miami-specific CSA items. Kat has been cooking and posting her Minneapolis CSA all summer long so there's big backlog of interesting recipes to try out.

I decided to switch from a pasta to a risotto just to keep things interesting and roasted the squash to boost the flavors a bit. Those two impulses worked against each other actually so you may as well just pan fry the squash if you want to make this dish.

I also cut the recipe down to one big serving since risotto is no good unless it's fresh off the stove. It'll serve two if you have a salad with it I think.

I also did some research on tips to improve risotto that I'm including in the procedure since they seemed to work out.

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1 cup butternut squash, peeled seeded and cut into 1/2- to 3/4-inch cubes
1 1/2 cups chicken broth, or vegetable broth (that's just under one can conveniently)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup shallot, chopped
1/2 Tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped
1/2 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 Tablespoon Italian parsley, chopped
2 Tablespoons goat cheese, crumbled
Salt and pepper and fresh grated nutmeg to taste

0. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

1. Toss the butternut squash cubes with a little olive oil and salt and roast in a single layer in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes or until just barely turning tender and brown. [That may be under 15 minutes for you. My pan doesn't quite fit in my oven so my oven door was ajar which I think slowed the cooking down. You want the butternut squash half-cooked so you can add it to the risotto later which kind of defeats the purpose of roasting because all the good stuff happens in the second half of cooking which you're not doing.]

2. Heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium high heat until shimmery. Add the shallot and sage and cook until the shallot is translucent and slightly browned. Remove leaving as much of the oil as you can.

3. Add more oil if necessary and add rice. Cook for seven to ten minutes, stirring frequently. The rice will turn translucent pretty quickly. Cook it until it turns opaque again and starts smelling nutty. [This bit is controversial. Many recipes say just to cook for two or three minutes to get to the translucent stage. The longer cooking time gave me a fluffier result, but the texture is kind of a puffed-rice sort of fluffy so I don't know if that's an ideal result. On the other hand, when I only cook the rice for a few minutes I find that it usually ends up a little crunchy in the middle which is no improvement.]

4. Heat up your wine in the microwave or on the stove. Once that's warm, heat up the stock too. Keep that hot as you go along.

5. When you're happy with the rice add the wine and turn down the heat to medium low. Cook, stirring often (which is not as often as frequently), until the wine is completely evaporated.

6. Add the shallot and sage back into the pan along with a couple ladles of stock. Cook, stirring not quite so often unless you really want to, until the stock is nearly evaporated. You might want to turn down the heat too.

7. Add more stock and cook some more. When the rice is about half done and the stock about half gone stir in the squash. This might also be a good time to add some salt and pepper.



8. Meanwhile, in a small pan, melt the butter over medium heat and cook until it is nicely browned.



9. Keep adding stock and cooking until the rice is where you want it or you run out of stock. And decide how wet you'd prefer your final results. When everything is pretty close to the way you want it, take the pot off the heat, stir in the brown butter, goat cheese (I used goat cheese with a mixed pepper coating for a bit of extra interest), parsley and some more sage wouldn't be a bad idea. Cover and let rest for three minutes. Uncover, check for seasoning and add the nutmeg. Don't neglect the nutmeg, it's surprisingly important in making the other flavors pop.

And if you did everything right they should be popping all over the place. You probably already know that butternut squash, brown butter and sage are a great flavor combination so I'll just say that a nicely creamy risotto is a fine delivery mechanism for those flavors. Oh, I forgot to add some of the leftover crab! I just did a quick taste test with the last bite of risotto and crab is just fabulous with the squash and sage. What wasted potential! OK, I've got another squash left. Maybe a squash/sage/brown butter/crab quiche?

Macedonian chickpea stew

I was all set for an event post tonight. I had my ticket for New Times Iron Fork competition: five, prominent I presume, local chefs battling Iron Chef-style for the Golden Fork Award. We in the audience wouldn't get to taste, of course, but we'd have samples from twenty local restaurants instead. But I worked a bit late, hit some traffic on my way to the venue and by the time I got there the parking lot was full and the line out the door. So I went home. I hope someone writes it up and has lots of pictures. It seems like it might have been fun.

I had no plans for dinner so I decided to catch up on my food blogs to see if anything caught my eye as doable with what I had on hand. One thing, from The Kitchn which I've just started reading recently, did. Kitchn is kind of a link-blog so they pointed out to this recipe for a lemony chick pea stir fry on a different blog and that pointed out to another blog with a different version.

I decided I wanted a more proper sauce than those recipes provide so I looked through my refrigerator to see what I could use. I came quite close using a tamarind chili sauce I've got, but I settled on a bottle of pinjur, a Macedonian condiment/ingredient made with roasted eggplant, garlic, parsley, olive oil and walnuts. The bottle I've got adds roasted red pepper which is not uncommon and tomatoes which probably is. Once I made that decision I looked up traditional Macedonian flavors to see what else to add. More parsley and paprika (not the smoked sort) as it turns out. So here's how it went:

Ingredients
1/2 can chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 medium yellow onion, minced
1/4 red pepper, minced (pre-roasted wouldn't be bad)
1 small yellow squash, in 1/2 inch slices and chopped into bite-sized pieces, not necessarily in that order
a few ounces firm tofu or some appropriate meat: lamb I suppose or chicken would do. I chopped my tofu into sub-centimeter cubes. Real meat probably ought to be roughly ground.
hot paprika to taste, paprika quality and intensity varies widely. Use your own judgment.
1 small handful parsley, roughly chopped
2 sizable dollops pinjur
oil for frying
white vinegar or lemon juice

1. In a medium non-stick pan, heat 1 Tablespoon of oil on medium-high heat. Add the chickpeas and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown.




2. Add garlic, onion and pepper. (If you're using roasted red pepper, don't add it yet.) Turn heat up a little and cook until chick peas start to crisp up, smell really good and turn a golden brown. Remove all to a bowl.





3. Leave heat at medium-high-high, add some more oil, let it heat up a bit and then add the squash and tofu (or meat), a pinch of salt and paprika. Cook until squash is soft and browned. It took me around four minutes but my pan was overcrowded.

4. Return chickpea mixture. Add pinjur, chick pea liquid and parsley (and roasted red pepper if you're using it). Stir to combine and heat through. Check for seasoning and add a splash of vinegar and maybe a little fruity olive oil.

5. Serve warm with some pita bread if you've got it.


All the flavors work quite well together, fairly accidentally but predictably as nothing here, bar the mildly flavored squash, is unusual for Macedonian cuisine. It was a quick cooking process so it hasn't really melded into a whole; it's more a medley of flavors as different combinations brush up against each other in each spoonful. It's a good combination of textures too; both the chick peas and the tofu are meaty against the soft squash, peppers and eggplant. It turned out rather better than I had any right to expect considering; it's actually quite presentable.

CSA week twelve - squash fritters with cheese, ham, peppers and onions

I had a squash leftover from my pickling project so when I happened across this recipe I thought I'd give it a try. I made a few modifications that I don't really think resulted in improvements but I think others had promise. Compare the two and judge for yourself.

Deep fried squash fritters with cheese, ham, peppers and onions
INGREDIENTS:

* 1/2 lb yellow summer squash
* salted water
* 1/2 cup finely shredded sharp cheese (I used Ementhal and added some herbs de Provance to match)
* 1/4 cup grits
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1 egg -- beaten
* 1/4 cup onion, chopped
* 1/4 cup pepper, chopped
* 1/4 cup ham, chopped
* oil for deep frying

PREPARATION:
Remove stem and blossom ends of squash and cut in large chunks. Place in a large pan and cover with salted water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat; cook until squash is tender. [After ten minutes my squash was perfectly done and I didn't have the heart to deliberately overcook it to make it more easily mashable. Instead I ran it through the food processor. That full liquidification was probably my main mistake as it led to some serious structural integrity issues. The switch from corn meal (which I've run out of) to grits didn't help on that account either. I'm not sure if using the whole beaten egg, instead of the half halving the original recipe required, helped or hurt. Certainly the end texture was more omelette-y than I expected.] Drain well; mash. Add all but onion, pepper and ham and blend well. Mix in the rest. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours to thicken. To fry, heat oil in the deep fryer to 370°. Drop squash batter by spoonfuls into hot oil. Cook until golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with a bit more salt if necessary. Serve hot.

Something went wrong with my phone-camera and the picture I took of the final results wasn't recorded. Ah well. You can get a sense of them from them still in the oil; they browned nicely but fell apart a bit more when I took them out of the pan.

Personally, I liked the fluffy, gritty and crunchy texture that resulted and was a bit disappointed with the lack of squash flavor. But I can see how others might disagree on both points and fritters that held together better would not be a bad thing.

CSA week twelve - pickled squash

A little belatedly for my initial post I realized that this week's full boxes represent a bumper crop and call for the traditional response: pickling.

I looked around a bit and found some worrying info on the subject from Utah State University:
"There are currently no safe, tested recipes for pickling summer squash followed by
boiling water canning. ... The heat required to can squash results in the squash flesh turning into mush and sinking to the bottom of the canning jar. The compacted flesh will not heat evenly. Therefore, all process times and temperatures are unsafe."

Huh. I did not know that. Well, refrigerator pickling is still an option. For my refrigerator pickles I use ceramic coffee jars. They're big enough to hold a full pound of vegetables, have a good tight seal and don't take up flavors. No real need for mason jars if you're not going to be boiling them.

I'm rather suspicious of a lot of the recipes now because many call for the full canning process and others call for simmering the squash for ten minutes. There are some mushy-looking pictures too so I guess they don't mind. I'm using this recipe minus the twenty minutes cooking time which I know is way too long for squash in any application. Don't people test recipes before sharing them? Anyway, the flavor combination seems interesting and I like that it doesn't go really heavy on the salt. The whole Tablespoon of cinnamon seems a bit odd and makes the brine a rich dark brown you don't see much in pickling, but it didn't enirely overwhelm the other flavors in the brine and the squash itself ought to balance it out. Remind me in a month and I'll tell you how it turned out.

CSA week eleven - curried peanut-squash soup

The thought just jumped into my head yesterday: "Doesn't African peanut soup use squash?" and suddenly peanut soup was all I wanted. Even if you can't use squash in it, I was going to make some. As it happens, there are plenty of recipes for peanut soup that call for squash, butternut squash primarily. But a summer squash I've got so a summer squash I'll use.

My next concern was the peanuts. I knew that the peanuts were substituting for something called "groundnuts" and I wondered if there was a better simulation than just stirring in a couple tablespoons of Skippy. A bit of research turned up the fact that peanuts are in fact replacing an ingredient called Bambara groundnuts, but they're doing it in African agriculture. People just like peanuts better as a crop and as an ingredient. Peanuts have even taking over the name; when you're in a West African village market and you ask for groundnuts, you'll get peanuts. I was still confident that a jar of peanut butter wasn't the best substitute and I was fully prepared to mail order some boiled peanuts from South Carolina and make my own non-roasted paste. But, yes, the peanuts are supposed to be roasted. I did learn that the all-natural unsweetened unsalted ground-on-demand peanut butter from the health food store is the closest approximation so I did learn something useful out of all that research.

Most peanut soup recipes use tomatoes or tomato juice or at least salsa, but I've made that sort before and I really don't like the combination. Non-tomato varieties are rare, but I found one I liked the look of here. I'm not sure the curry spices are entirely traditional but what the heck.

I made the recipe as written, but realized too late that the 20 minutes simmering was too much for a summer squash. So I added a cup of bay scallops with the peas to give a similar firm bite to a not-overcooked-squash. The end result is pretty nice with a lot of different interesting flavors playing well together.

You could easily use vegetable broth instead of the chicken to make this a vegan dish. Or add chicken to make it more substantial. Using a citrusy Singapore curry blend instead of a straight Madras mix would be an interesting variation. I might add some chunks of white fish filet to that, too. Now I'm thinking that the Singapore variation would be really good; I'll have to remember that one for next time.

CSA week nine - maple-mustard glazed squash

I've had maple-mustard sauces before, so I figured something along those lines would work. I improvised this as I went along.

Glaze:
2 Tablespoons country Dijon mustard (or something more rustic and German if you've got some)
1 Tablespoons grade B maple syrup
2 Tablespoons pumpkin lager
1/2 teaspoon vulcan salt
pepper to taste
(all measurements are guesses; I didn't actually measure anything.)

1 yellow summer squash, in 1 inch slices
1/4 red onion, sliced thin

1 pork chop, brined
Spice House Bavarian seasoning to coat
2 sprinkles of flour, one for each side

fry pork chop in non-stick pan using a bit more oil than you normally would. (Normally I'd use a cast iron pan, but I'm going to be reducing a glaze with some vinegar in it which would adversely effect the pan's seasoning.)

When done, remove chop to plate, cover in foil and place in 200 degree oven to keep warm.

Mix glaze

Add onion and squash to pan. Cook at medium for a couple minutes to soften the onions. Raise heat and cook briefly on just below high to get some color on the squash without overcooking the onions.

Turn down heat to medium low, remove pan from heat, wait a few moments, add glaze to pan, stir to coat squash, return to heat, cover and let steam for two to three minutes depending on how cooked your squash is at this point (I slightly overcooked mine).

Remove cover and cook briefly to thicken glaze. Serve with the pork chop. Optionally, you could forgo the pork chop and and crumble a crisp slice of bacon over the squash instead. Or you could do without pork entirely, I suppose if you really wanted to.

I would have served this with buttered egg noodles sprinkled with a bit more of the Bavarian seasoning, but I had some leftover rice from lunch.

I really like how the glaze turned out and it compliments both the squash and the pork very nicely. It's not an exceptionally inspired dish given the rather standard constellation of flavors, but I'm just having dinner here not running an avant garde restaurant so I'm fine with that.