Spicy Butternut Squash Pudding--A Wonderful Fall Starter

Somehow, it seems I have been working a lot with the vegetables from the pumpkin family. Last year, I often made pumpkin risottos and gnocchi. This year I experimented with different pumpkin soups and savory dishes. If you came to my home for dinner lately, chances are, as a starter I would serve you spicy butternut squash pudding--my newest invention--with freshly baked bread. I fell in love with this dish.

As it is often the case the best ideas come accidentally. And so did mine. The idea for this dish came to me last year when I had friends for dinner and wanted to prepare something vegetarian. I made a squash bisque but still had plenty of squash left and I wanted to prepare a dish that could be made ahead and served later. I roasted squash, added some other vegetables and spices, and baked it in water. The dish came as a big surprise and was a great success. I served it in individual ramekins, decorated with sage or pumpkin seeds. It looked nice and tasted even better. Everybody liked it very much and even two extra portions were gone as well.

At that time I did not have time to write down this recipe and as it is with some improvisations, I did not remember exactly how I made it. After many phone conferences with my sister who was at that dinner as well, I finally reproduced this recipe. She could not remember how I prepared this dish, but had a vivid impression of its taste. I tried it several times and finally got it right. This week, I will make it again for my friends.

It can be served as a dinner starter, or a stand-alone dish alone with fresh baguette, and I am pretty sure everybody will enjoy this simple fall dish.

Spicy Butternut Squash Pudding
(Serves six)

Ingredients:
1 medium butternut squash (about 4 pounds of peeled cubes),
3 celery sticks, sliced,
4 shallots, chopped,
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped,
1 tsp mild curry powder,
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese,
1 tsp paprika (smoked or Hungarian),
1/3–1/2 cup heavy whipping cream,
2 small eggs,
1 tbsp lemon juice,
sage leaves or pumpkin seeds to decorate,
olive oil for frying,
salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Peel off squash and cut into medium cubes. Coat pieces with one tbsp of olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes until they get slightly brown on the sides.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium heavy duty frying pan, heat about 2 tbsp of oil. Add chopped shallots and fry them until transparent. Add thinly sliced celery sticks and fry together for another 3-5 minutes, until they become soft. Add squash pieces and parsley to the pan. Mix well and turn off the heat.
4. Using a blender (I use a hand blender) puree all the ingredients into a smooth paste. Add curry, paprika, salt, pepper, lemon juice and Parmesan cheese. Try and decide if you need more salt and pepper.
5. Add two eggs and heavy whipping cream and mix well. Up to this step a dish can be made hours ahead.
6. Preheat oven to 400F.
7. Divide the squash puree among six slightly buttered ramekins. Place them on a large baking pan with higher walls and pour around hot water, up to the half of ramekins' height.

8. Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until top is set and slightly gold.

Serve warm decorated with butter-fried sage leaves or pumpkin seeds and freshly baked bread.

White Beans Sautéed with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Pancetta

This recipe is an upscale or at least drier version of what you used to get at any place serving food in Poland and was called Beans à la Bretonne. It was a dish made of cooked large white beans in a tomato sauce. In the more prosperous times it was served with chopped sausage, or bacon, or even meats. But most often it was served as a protein-rich vegetarian dish.

I do not have any particular sentiment for beans made that way, but because I like all kinds of beans I found this, most probably Italian, variation of this dish interesting. It called for tomatoes, but sun-dried, and pancetta, and some extra spices and herbs.

I made it last week on a cold, windy day. I added some chili pepper flakes, which made it fairly spicy. It tasted great, warming up and comforting.

I made part of the dish without pancetta for my son, but I added more garlic and tomatoes to it. He liked it a lot. But I found it tastier when I added some pancetta to it. It did not make the dish heavier but the taste of pancetta complimented it nicely.

I also cooked the beans al dente. They were already soft, but still a bit tender when bitten, while in Poland we served them nearly overcooked. For that reason, dry beans, not canned, should be used. Beans should be soaked over night and cooked slowly for about an hour, but you really need to try how you like them. I also salted it at the end of cooking with coarse sea salt. But not too much, as tomatoes and pancetta add extra saltines already.

White Beans Sautéed with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Pancetta
(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
1 lb (half a kilogram ) of dried, large white beans (e.g., Lima beans),
6-8 garlic cloves,
1 cup of sun-dried tomatoes (the best are those in oil and herbs), cut in strips
1/4 lb of pancetta (10-12 very thin slices),
1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped,
1 tsp red chili pepper,
1 tbs fresh rosemary leaves.

Preparation:
1. Cover the beans with water (about an inch above) and let them soak overnight. Simmer in the same water for about an hour or a bit longer, until they have desirable softness.
2. Preheat a large frying pan. Add pancetta and fry it until it releases all the fat. Cut garlic into thin slices garlic and, add it to the pot, and fry it together for about 3-5 minutes until garlic becomes gold.
3. Cut sun dried tomatoes and add them to the pan, mix everything, and let it cook together for about a minute. Throw in chopped rosemary and chili pepper, and stir.
4. Add beans and about a 1/4 cup of water. Mix together and simmer gently until water evaporates and beans are coated in all the ingredients.

Serve hot.

Brussels Sprouts in Breadcrumbs--As Simple as That

How excited can you get about Brussels sprouts? I suppose, it's difficult to like them or hate them. But with the upcoming holidays I decided to write about them anyways. I also hope that this simple idea may gain some fans, in particular, among those who like me, actually like Brussels sprouts.

If you have ever visited Poland you might have noticed something that I have realised only recently, while writing about Polish food. In Poland we serve many vegetables (and not only) in breadcrumbs. I do not know why. It could be our love for breads, or maybe just we always had these dry bread leftovers that we did not like to throw away, or maybe we just like the taste of food coated in breadcrumbs.

I need to say that some vegetables served this way taste exceptionally good. A fresh yellow, green, or purple beans that we pick up straight from the stalks in the summer, and cauliflower, or fall Brussels sprouts taste really good coated in gold breadcrumbs. That is my favorite way of eating these vegetables, especially when I am in Poland where at the farmers markets they are sold fresh, harvested early in the morning the same day.

At this point I need to stress that breadcrumbs you can buy at the supermarket do not do the trick. Those in American stores are often sweet and not crunchy enough. The best way is to make them as we do it in Poland by griding dry white rolls or baguettes (the baguette flour is supposed to be of the best quality). So if you have dry baguette leftover in your kitchen, take them out and using a fine grater or food processor turn them into plain and crispy breadcrumbs. Then get some Brussels sprouts and make this Polish classic dish just like that, without any spices and flavors, a bit crunchy, and slightly bitter-sweet.

Brussels Sprouts in Breadcrumbs
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 lb Brussels sprouts,
5 tbsp of good quality butter with high fat content (Keller's butter or Kerrygold Irish butter would be best),
3 tbsp bread crumbs,
1 tbsp salt,
1 tbsp sugar.

Preparation:
1. In a medium pot boil water with salt and sugar. Add Brussels sprouts and cook for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how soft you like them to be. Drain the Brussels sprouts on a colander.
2. Preheat a large frying pan. Add breadcrumbs and toast them first on a dry pan, stirring continuously until they turn gold. Add pieces of butter and mix them with breadcrumbs, stirring all the time.

When butter starts to bubble add Brussels sprouts and coat them with breadcrumbs. Fry for about one minutes.You can also put Brussels sprouts on the serving plate and pour over bubbling breadcrumbs  mixture.

Serve as meat accompaniment or alone, if you are a great Brussels sprouts amateur like me.