Winter squash usually gets short shrift at the holiday table, relegated to pumpkin pie or maybe a side dish for those who can’t abide sweet potatoes. In the hands of Los Angeles’ Le Comptoir chef Gary Menes, though, this oft-overlooked vegetable can become the star of the show — even replacing the turkey.
Menes, whose tiny Koreatown restaurant features mainly vegetables he grows himself at a garden in Long Beach, Calif., has been dubbed the “vegetable whisperer.” Restaurant critic Jonathan Gold placed Le Comptoir among the top 50 restaurants in Southern California. Of course, it takes a lot more than murmuring sweet nothings to make a squash dish that’s worthy of being a Thanksgiving centerpiece.
Menes first roasts the squash until it’s almost tender, then sautes it while basting with butter. He serves it with roasted onions, chewy wheat berries, a crunchy, tart relish and meaty, long-cooked onion jus. It’s labor-intensive, to be sure, but the work can easily be spread across several days — and simply sauteed and assembled right before serving.
The dish has changed very little since Menes first served it almost 10 years ago when he was cooking at Palate Food + Wine in Glendale, Calif.
“Barbara Spencer (of Windrose Farm) had blue Hubbards available, and I remember thinking what a shame it would be to cook them and puree them for a soup,” Menes says. At the same time, he’d been thinking of a way to get more vegetables on the meat-heavy menu.
Menes remembered a photo he’d seen of French chef Alain Ducasse sauteing wedges of Musquee de Provence pumpkin in butter and herbs in a black steel pan. “It was so sexy in its simplicity and its beauty.” From that image, the dish was born. But it did need some filling out.
“Because the squash, although it does have some texture and thickness to it, doesn’t quite have the texture of meat, you need a little bit of a pop in there,” Menes says. “I thought of wheat berries, because no matter how long you cook them, they still have a bit of a chew.
“Then you get some of the sweet-sour crunchy from the relish too. And then with the slow-cooked onion jus, you’d get that kind of meaty sauce that you’re craving. Honestly, it hasn’t changed much since I first served it,” he says.
Well, with one exception — since a cook can’t count on a constant supply of blue Hubbards (even when he grows them himself), Menes has sampled widely from the winter squash palate.
“I’ve used everything from candy roasters to red and blue Hubbards,” he says. “I’ve used kuri squash. I’ve used acorn squash. I’ve used three different butternut squashes. I’ve used kabochas, the blue one as well as the green and orange too. And probably my favorite of them all because it’s so dramatic is the Musquee de Provence.”
As you might expect, he has firm opinions about different squashes. Menes says kabocha is drier and tastes more like Japanese sweet potato than other squashes, which tend to be nuttier. Butternut squash has a lot of moisture and is sweet. “At times we shave it really thin and serve it raw along with the dish to give a sense of crunch.”
Kuri squash has an almost ideal water content and the smell is like summer melons. Blue Hubbard smells like summer melon too; it has a distinct savoriness. Musquee de Provence, which is also called fairy tale, is not sugar-sweet at all but is more savory. It is juicy and caramelizes beautifully.
Whichever squash you use, be sure to taste it and adjust the seasoning accordingly. Really sweet varieties such as butternut might take a little more vinegar in the jus to balance the flavors. The variability is part of the beauty of the dish.
“Each squash has its own set of characteristics and loveliness,” Menes says. “That’s just the quality of it, and that’s the beauty of it and you just enjoy it for what it is.”
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CARAMELIZED WINTER SQUASH WITH WHEAT BERRIES, DRIED CHERRY RELISH AND ROASTED ONIONS
3 1/2 hours, plus roasting times. Serves 12.
WHEAT BERRIES
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, minced
1 carrot, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound wheat berries or kamut
1/2 cup white wine
6 sprigs thyme
4 cups water
1. In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until soft and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, or to taste.
2. Stir in the wheat berries and cook until they are lightly toasted, about 2 minutes. Stir in the wine and cook until it evaporates, 2 minutes.
3. Add the thyme and enough water to cover by one inch, cover the pan with a lid and gently simmer until the wheat berries are tender, about 1 hour. Check the berries occasionally, adding additional water as needed so the berries do not dry out. Once the berries are tender, remove from heat and drain any excess liquid. This makes a scant 8 cups wheat berries.
DRIED CHERRY RELISH
8 ounces dried cherries or currants
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice and zest from 1 orange
1 small red onion, diced
3/4 cup (4 ounces) whole pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped (pine nuts or pumpkin seeds can be substituted)
2 tablespoons minced parsley
2 tablespoons minced chives
2 tablespoons best quality red wine vinegar
Salt
Simmer the cherries, orange juice, zest and red onion in a small pot over medium-low heat until the liquid is almost evaporated, about 15 minutes. Add the pistachios, parsley, chives and red wine vinegar and season with 3/8 teaspoon salt, or to taste. This makes about 2 cups relish.
ROASTED ONIONS
1 large onion (or 12 small to medium bulbing green onions, with greens still attached)
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper
Thyme leaves
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay a large sheet of aluminum foil on a work surface. Place the whole onion, or the whole bulbing onions, in the center with the butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper and thyme leaves. Seal tightly into a package and roast until the onions are soft, about 40 minutes.
ONION JUS
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3 pounds red onions, thinly sliced
1 sprig thyme
Sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Heat the butter in a nonstick pan over medium heat. After the butter foams and subsides, add the onions and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are a deep mahogany color, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
2. Transfer the onions to a 2- to 3-quart saucepan, cover with water by 2 inches and simmer until the liquid is deeply flavored, about 1 hour.
3. Strain the liquid into a 1 quart saucepan and press liquid out of the solids before discarding them. Simmer gently until the liquid is reduced to a sauce-like consistency, about 1 hour.
4. Before using, correct the seasoning with sherry vinegar and salt and pepper.
CARAMELIZED WINTER SQUASH WITH WHEAT BERRIES, DRIED CHERRY RELISH, ROASTED ONIONS AND ONION JUS
1 winter squash (recipe tested with butternut, but you could also use blue Hubbard squash, Hokkaido, kabocha or Musquee de Provence/fairytale pumpkin)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted, divided
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Brown sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 sage leaves
6 sprigs thyme
Wheat berries, reheated if prepared in advance
Dried cherry relish
Onion jus, reheated if prepared in advance
Roasted onion
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Halve the squash lengthwise through the stem, scooping out the stringy center and seeds (save the seeds for next year’s planting). Brush the cut sides and cavity with 1/4 cup butter and season each half with 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 2 teaspoons brown sugar, or to taste.
2. Lay the squash cut-side down on a parchment-lined sheet pan and wrap the pan tightly with aluminum foil.
3. Bake in the oven until you can poke a paring knife into the flesh with only slight resistance, 1 to 2 hours. Cool to room temperature.
4. Cut the squash into 2-ounce wedges.
5. Heat the remaining 1/4 cup butter in a nonstick skillet with the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the squash wedges. If using the whole roasted onion, cut it in thin wedges, leaving the wedges attached at the root end. Add the onion wedges or the whole spring onions to the pan with the squash. Add the sage leaves and thyme sprigs. Slowly brown the squash and the onion, basting with the butter every few minutes, until the squash is deeply caramelized on the cut sides and the onion is lightly browned. If the pan looks dry, add more olive oil and butter. Set aside.
6. When ready to serve, spoon 3/4 cup wheat berries onto a plate. Top with 3 wedges of caramelized squash. Garnish with 3 tablespoons of dried cherry relish on top of the squash, spoon over some of the onion jus and serve with a roasted onion wedge beside the squash.
Each of 12 servings
Calories 559
Protein 11 g
Carbohydrates 70 g
Fiber 10 g
Fat 29 g
Saturated fat 14 g
Cholesterol 56 mg
Sugar 22 g
Sodium 290 mg
Note: Adapted from a recipe by Gary Menes. Roasting the squash, preparing the onion jus, making the dried cherry relish and cooking the wheat berries can all be done several days in advance and assembled just before serving.
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