Playing with Butternut Squash

Last week, there was a squash sale on nearby grocery store. Yeah... It is almost pumpkin season this time. I bought one and brought it home. After that, I was thinking. What could I possibly make out of this squash? I was not even sure that I've ever eat this squash. I think i ate pumpkin soup on a party 2 years ago. The soup was good. Was it made from butternut squash or another pumpkin?  What's the difference between this squash and pumpkin?

Butternut Squash or Dutch people call it flespompoen is one of many type of pumpkin. It is common as winter pumpkin or winter squash. It has sweet and nutty taste which is similar to pumpkin. Its color is yellowish and not as orange as pumpkin (imagine cinderella or halloween pumpkin). But the skin is thin and easy to peel compared with other pumpkin (Imagine peeling a melon). Read this article about types of pumpkin and squash. It turned out that there are many types and varieties of pumpkin and squash in the world.

Butternut squash can be roasted, toasted, pureed for many kind of purposes such as, making soup, cake, bread, casserole, muffins, and many thing else. Well, because my squash is pretty big, I think I can make some dishes using one butternut squash. First, I'm going to cut it into half.

After I cut it into half, I can see that the squash has a thick flesh and few seeds. The color of the flesh is lighter than pumpkin as well. Now, I'm going to make some experiment. I took a half of that squash, cut 1/3 part of it, peel and cut it into small cubes. I want to know how it taste. I'm not going to boil or steam it, but I will roast it with my oven. I made 2 small tray using aluminium foil and divide the squash cubes into them. The squash cubes on first tray will be mixed with soft butter, and the second one will be mixed with olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Put both trays on the baking sheet and bake it in the 200 C oven for about 15-20 minutes. 

 This is the result. The left tray is the first squash (using butter) and the right one is the second squash (using olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper). They taste great. The squash with butter is not as sweet as I expected. I was expecting it would taste sweet like pumpkin but I was wrong. Until now, I never expected that something sweet like pumpkin or squash goes well with garlic. But I was wrong again. Squash that mixed with olive oil and garlic had a very unique taste but it was good. Now I know and can start to imagine what kind of dish that can be made out of butternut squash. There is some peeled squash left and I can't wait to "play" with it. :-)