Roasted Squash with Cheats Burrata, Toasted Hazelnuts & Crispy Sage.

A simple autumnal salad full of contrasting colours, textures and flavours.

It’s a grey, lazy sort of day today. I’ve often wondered why we British seem to care so much about America’s elections, but then again it’s all actually quite interesting to have an election in a country where you speak the language with a structure you (sort of) understand that you’re not actually involved in to watch, for those of us who once used to do this sort of thing (elections, I mean) as our actual job.

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So we fell asleep to the lull of CNN playing on low, being startled awake by key moments, discussing and debating with each other the sort of things only two former politicos find baffling interesting (That’s the American definition of an exit poll?¹ The Democrats use an app for voter turnout, why don’t we do that? Wait, so they use different methods of counting votes in each state? And different states have different rules around absentee and early voting? Is that fair? We have a reporting blackout on election day, surely sharing results from the East Coast whilst the West Coast are still voting could impact the result?)

As a result, as I said, today is a bit of a grey (that’s the British weather, compounded by the fact I live on the edge of a marsh), lazy (that’s the interrupted sleep) kind of a day, one where I’m pottering around the house doing laundry, and where I have several different sauces I have in development for various clients blipping away in the kitchen. Once I’m finished with actual desk work, I’ll retreat to the sofa to edit some photos, or plan some future recipes.

It’s this greyness that led to today’s recipe: I wanted something vibrant in colour with a bit of a zip to it (not the creamy comfort of the pumpkin risotto I’d originally planned to shoot and write about today) but which was both still very autumnal in nature, and hopefully also worked with the ingredients I’d gathered for the risotto.

Roasted Squash with Pickled Walnut Salsa Verde & White Bean Puree

The result is a bit of an assembly job of a few different elements of different recipes I’ve written in the past which works brilliantly as a light lunch or substantial starter, would be good piled onto toast, or bulked out with some crispy chickpeas or jarred beans. It’s ‘scale up for a serving platter’ friendly too. The roasted pumpkin is one of my favourite methods of roasting a crown prince with the skin still on for texture (which also featured on a bed of white bean puree drizzled with salsa verde on my blog last year), the cheat’s burrata is my take on a genius method by my friend

Margie Nomura

for turning a plain ball of mozzarella into a gooey burrata-style cheese perfect for salads (do subscribe to her newsletter!), and, well, anyone can toast and crisp up some hazelnuts in a pan of hot oil (or even butter for browning if you’re eating this straight away) for an aromatic, textured, seasonal garnish.

Roasted Crown Prince Squash with Cheats Burrata, Toasted Hazelnuts & Crispy Sage

Serves: 2 (easily scaled up for a serving platter), Preparation time: 15 minutes, Cooking time: 40 minutes

Obviously, any squash you want will work here, and if it’s a variety where the skins don’t cook up well like a butternut, peel them off before roasting. And as I mentioned above, you can use butter for the hazelnuts and sage for an extra flavour boost instead of finishing the whole thing with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, I was just not feeling it today. Mood-eat for you, not me.

• approx. 700g crown prince squash (about 1 small one), cut into wedges

• light olive oil

• sea salt

• 2 balls mozzarella

• 100ml double cream

• zest 1/2 small lemon

• small handful hazelnuts, roughly chopped with a few kept whole

• handful sage leaves

• extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C and line a large tin with baking parchment. Toss the squash wedges with a good amount of oil and seasoning, and spread out in a single layer. Roast for 40 minutes, turning halfway.

2. To make the cheats burrata, tear the mozzarella into a bowl and stir in the cream and the lemon zest. Set aside, stirring occasionally as you pass the bowl.

3. Heat another splash of oil in a small saucepan over a medium high heat, and once it’s shimmering quickly stir-fry the hazelnuts and sage leaves until the nuts are golden, and the sage is crisp. Remove from the pan onto a kitchen-paper lined plate - obviously, if you’re going the butter route, do this step at the last minute and just pour it over the assembled dish.

4. Remove the squash from the oven and arrange between two plates, dotted with the burrata. Scatter over the hazelnuts and sage, and finish each plate with a generous drizzle of extra virgin.

1. In the UK an ‘exit poll’ is a vote projection, how many seats in Parliament each party has received and who will be the party large enough to form a government. We would not define the polling that came before this information which was billed as an ‘exit poll’ last night on what issues Americans felt were most important at the ballot, the favorability ratings of the current President by party breakdown etc. as such.