Tender, succulent roasted butternut squash, anointed with warm spices, olive oil, and just a touch of maple syrup, pairs up with vibrant sweet-hot pickled chillies and creamy labneh enriched with mint and preserved lemon, for an easy yet spectacular and fragrant offering for your table.
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Butternut, a perfect squash for roasting
I love roasted butternut squash for its tender, moist, and luscious texture. Deep tiger-orange in colour, mild, and inherently sweet, butternut squash has an especially harmonious accord with warm and fragrant spice combinations such as Moroccan spice mixture ras el hanout.
The harmonious accord of butternut squash and opulent warm spices
Here the squash is tossed with spices, a touch of maple syrup, olive oil, and then cut in asymmetrical wedges. While each piece cooks through thoroughly, the thinner sections can take on some caramelized, burnished edges which adds a deeper flavour note to the dish and creates a lovely visual effect when serving, as it so happens!
Ras-el-hanout is an opulent spice mixture from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria containing dozens of different spices depending on unique regional and individual formulations. Author John Gregory-Smith describes ras el hanout, in his excellent cookbook Orange Blossoms and Honey, as translating into ‘top of the shop,’ meaning the best a spice shop has to offer.
While an astonishingly high number of possible ingredients can be included in ras el hanout, Gregory-Smith notes that the mixture most often contains cardamom, cloves, coriander, cumin, ginger, mace, nutmeg, rose petals, cinnamon, and black pepper, amongst other potential ingredients. As you might imagine from the ingredient list, ras el hanout is deeply fragrant, and redolent of warm, sweet, aromatic, and peppery flavour notes.
Luscious preserved lemon and mint labneh
If you are familiar with labneh, you undoubtedly appreciate it, as I do, for its tangy, rich, and flavourful goodness which resides somewhere in the tasty flavourways between yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese.
Here, the lushness of the roasted squash is further accentuated by a quickly made and luxurious mixture of creamy labneh enriched with finely chopped preserved lemon and fresh mint leaves, easily mixed up while the squash roasts. You can use a food processor as I have, or use a bowl and whisk if you prefer.
When the finished dish is ready to plate and eat, each scoop of tender roasted squash is accompanied by a lovely daub of the tangy labneh, enlivened by little pops of the lemony, briny preserved lemon rind, and the cool, sweet, and herbaceous strands of mint.
Vibrant quick pickled chillies to top it all off
To literally top it all off, easy to make while the squash finished roasting, 5 ingredient Smoky Maple Pickled Chillies provide deeply flavourful and vibrant sweet heat that ties everything together. Worth making for this dish alone, whipping up a batch of these peppers comes with the added bonus of enough left over for other creations - you may indeed find you want to put them on everything!
Ready in a few minutes, the magical combination of apple cider vinegar, smoked salt, maple sugar, and finely sliced red chillies produces a two in one condiment; quick pickled peppers, and a distinctive and piquant brine that brings everything together.
If you don't have maple sugar or smoked salt on hand, you can easily make these pickled chillies with cane sugar and regular salt as a substitute, adding a small pinch of smoked paprika and a dash of maple syrup if you like. In any variation, the sweet heat of these pickles is pleasing and moreish to be sure!
Pairing
These are my favorite dishes to serve alongside Roasted Butternut Squash with Warm Spices, Pickled Chilies, and Labneh:
Roasted Squash with Warm Spices, Pickled Chilies, and Lemon Mint Labneh
Ingredients
For the roasted squash:
- 2.5-3 lbs butternut squash approx 1 medium squash, cut in half lengthwise, peeled, interior seeds and membranes removed
- 2 teaspoon ras el hanout spice mix
- 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- sea salt to taste
For the pickled chillies (you will have leftovers to use elsewhere, *see notes)
- 2 red chilli peppers thinly sliced
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon smoked salt substitute with sea salt if needed
- 1 teaspoon granulated maple sugar substitute with cane sugar if needed
For the labneh mixture:
- 2 cups labneh
- 2 tablespoon preserved lemon peel finely chopped, interior flesh and membranes discarded, *see notes
- 2-3 teaspoon preserved lemon brine or lemon juice, to taste
- 3 teaspoon fresh mint leaves finely slivered, a few strands reserved for garnish
Instructions
- Set your oven to 450°F and line a roasting tray with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
- Once your squash is peeled, seeded, and cut in half lengthwise, cut the squash into stubby, angled, thick (on one end and thin on the other) chunks. Place all of the cut squash into a large mixing bowl, sprinkle with the ras el hanout, then add the olive oil, maple syrup, and a sprinkle of sea salt. Toss and stir to coat.
- Lay out the squash on the prepared baking sheet, leaving room between each piece, and scrape out any remaining spiced oil from the bowl with a silicone spatula and drizzle on top. Roast for approximately 30 minutes, until squash is tender and starting to brown at the edges. Remove the tray from the oven - squash can be served warm or room temperature as you prefer.
- While the squash is roasting, first prepare the pickled chillies. Make the brine: using a clean glass jar, add the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Shake or stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Add in the sliced chili peppers and submerge in the brine. Let sit for a while on the counter as you make the labneh and the squash finishes roasting.
- While the squash finishes roasting, prepare the labneh mixture, adding the labneh, finely chopped preserved lemon peel, preserved lemon brine or lemon juice, and finely slivered mint into a bowl or food processor. Mix and adjust seasoning as needed, adding more lemon juice or brine to brighten the flavours as needed. Only add salt after tasting as preserved lemons can be salty.
- To plate for serving, mound and smear the prepared labneh on the bottom of a large plate or shallow bowl. Mound the roasted squash on top of the labneh, and garnish with pickled chili slices and reserved slivered mint leaves. Take a teaspoon or two of the pickled chili brine and drizzle over the labneh, serve with extra pickled chillies and brine on the side if desired, and enjoy!
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