Dig-in with Nigel Slater...

We watched Nigel Slater's Simple Supper's last night. Part of the BBC's Dig-in campaign, aimed at getting people to cook using home-grown produce, it was another mouth-watering programme. Particularly loved his recipe for roast butternut squash and will definitely try that.



Here's the recipe (courtesy of the BBC Dig-in website):

For the squash:2 butternut squash
few thick slices butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the stuffing:
2 slices butter
2-3 large onions, peeled and sliced
finger-length piece fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2-3 pinches ground cinnamon
2-3 pinches cumin seeds
pinch or so paprika
handful sultanas

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Cut the squash in half, spoon out the seeds and discard. Using a sharp knife, score the flesh of the squash in a criss-cross pattern, so that the heat can get to the interior. Place the squash halves, cut sides facing upwards, into an ovenproof dish, dot with the butter and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for one hour.

In the meantime, make the stuffing. Heat the butter in a large shallow pan until foaming, add the onions, cover and cook gently until softened, about 15 minutes. Add the ginger, cinnamon, cumin seeds, paprika and sultanas and continue to cook until the onions are starting to caramelise.

Place equal amounts of the stuffing mixture on top of the roasted squash, then return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to allow the juices to trickle through the squash. Serve immediately with some of the pan juices spooned over.

Yum yum!

All the recipes from the series can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/digin/nigelslater.shtml and you can download a recipe booklet here too.

I cannot praise the programme enough, in fact I cannot praise good ol' Nigel enough! I just love his style of cooking - good wholesome food with no 'faffing around' and what stands him apart from other 'celebrity' chefs and their literary offerings, is his books are always a jolly good read. He has a new book out called Tender: A Cook and his Vegetable Patch which is just fabulous. A whopping compendium of 'grow your own' recipes organised into chapters by vegetable (Vol 2 which will deal with Fruit will be published next year, just in time for the ripening of our summer fruits!). I am hoping to be able to test drive some of the recipes from Tender very soon so watch this space for a review.