Tremendous Stuffed Acorn Squash
Prep
15m
Cook
55m
Total
70m
Bigly says
Sit. Pour yourself a coffee. We're doing this right. Acorn squash — TREMENDOUS acorn squash — stuffed to the gills and roasted into something that looks like a small autumn cathedral on a plate. The greatest stuffed acorn squash in the history of stuffed acorn squashes, and there has been a LOT of stuffed acorn squash, the colonists were stuffing squashes left and right, that and the hats, that was their whole life, and not a single one of those squashes hits the level we're about to hit. It's not even close. It's a slaughter.
My grandmother — a tough woman, she could split firewood at 84, she'd carry the kindling in one hand and a cleaver in the other, you did NOT cross her — taught me three things about squash. One: pick a heavy one, heft is honesty in the produce aisle. Two: cut it fearlessly, none of this timid little nicking at the skin, get a real knife and COMMIT. Three: stuff it with something that has TEXTURE. Not mush. Not paste. Not, heaven help us, plain rice. Wild rice. Cranberries. Pecans toasted to within an inch of their lives. Sage. Goat cheese melting into the cavity like a benediction. Crunch. Pop. Sweet. Tang. The whole orchestra in one squash half. The neighbor who taught me this lived to be 102. Could be a coincidence. Probably not.
Stuffed squash is EASY. You cut it. You roast it. You stuff it. Back in the oven. That's the whole game. And what comes out is something so golden, so tremendously autumnal, that your dinner guests will gasp. Actual gasps. Big tough people, the toughest, they gasp. Then they cry a little. Then they ask for the recipe. And I tell them where I got it — right here — and I tell them to go make it themselves, because I am not a butler, I am Bigly, and I do not run a squash delivery service.
Ingredients
- 2 mediumacorn squash(pick heavy ones, deep green, no soft spots)
- 3 tbsp, dividedolive oil
- 1 1/2 tsp, dividedkosher salt
- 1 tsp, dividedblack pepper
- 2 tbsppure maple syrup(the real stuff, not corn syrup with brown coloring)
- 1 cup, drywild rice blend
- 2 1/4 cupslow-sodium vegetable broth
- 1 smallyellow onion, finely diced
- 2 stalkscelery, diced
- 3 clovesgarlic, minced
- 1 tbspfresh sage, chopped
- 1 tspfresh thyme leaves
- 1/3 cupdried cranberries
- 1/2 cuppecans, roughly chopped
- 4 ozgoat cheese, crumbled
- 2 tbspfresh parsley, chopped (to serve)
Steps
- 1
Heat oven to 400°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment.
- 2
Cut each acorn squash in half from stem to tip. Scoop out the seeds and stringy bits with a spoon. If a half doesn't sit flat, shave a thin slice off the bottom skin so it does — but do not cut through the cavity.
- 3
Brush the cut sides with 2 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. Drizzle the maple syrup over the cavities and rub it across the cut surface.
- 4
Place the squash cut-side up on the sheet pan. Roast 40-45 minutes, until the flesh is fork-tender and the edges are caramelized.
- 5
While the squash roasts, rinse the wild rice and bring it to a boil with the vegetable broth in a saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 35-40 minutes until tender. Drain any excess liquid and set aside.
- 6
Toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat 3-4 minutes, stirring often, until fragrant. Transfer to a plate.
- 7
In the same skillet, heat the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and celery with the remaining 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. Cook 6-7 minutes until soft. Add the garlic, sage, and thyme and cook 1 minute more.
- 8
Combine the cooked wild rice, the onion-celery mixture, dried cranberries, and toasted pecans in a large bowl. Stir well.
- 9
Mound the filling into the roasted squash halves, pressing gently to pack. Top each with crumbled goat cheese.
- 10
Return to the oven and bake 8-10 minutes, until the cheese has softened and the filling is heated through.
- 11
Top with fresh parsley and serve.
One more thing
Put this in the middle of the table at a dinner party and people will think you've been to culinary school. You haven't. You've been HERE. That's better. Culinary school costs FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS and they teach you to make a foam — what is a foam, foam is for the bathtub, not the plate. We don't do foam. We do stuffed squash. We do dinner. We do tremendous. The squash is the centerpiece, the squash is the conversation, the squash is the reason your in-laws will finally stop comparing you to your sister. Beautiful.
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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