I flew home from Dubai a couple of weeks ago to break up what would otherwise have been another 3 month period of family separation. As well as the excitement of seeing Jane and the boys, returning from the Gulf has the added pleasure of weeks of "returns" from the garden. We have a routine on a Saturday morning during my Dubai weekends of a walk around the garden on an Ipad. A remote tour of crops being one highlight. So while some of the developments plant and vegetable wise were not a surprise nothing prepares you for the reality of enthusiastic growth. The various Squash seemed to have been the obvious superstars of the Potager this Summer.
We planted three varieties back in June. Honeybear, Hunter and the exotically named Turk's Turban. The Squash plants themselves have run amok - spilling out of their two dedicated raised beds, sending tendrils racing across the Hoggin paths in all directions. I perhaps should have focused a little more on the technical growing details but we have practiced a degree of benevolent neglect this year. The male flowers pollinated the female flowers with the help of the local bee population. We were not initially atuned to which was which or the general process. I understand now that Squash aficionados will pollinate with a brush and then pinch off a runner to focus each plant's energy on the production of a few decent fruits. Runners are trained and pegged and in some instance trained vertically. For us though this year was a complete experiment and on my part an abandoned one as I travelled back to Dubai for July and August.
I had a lot to take in on the morning after my arrival. The flowers on the Squash plants are a luxurient yellow and remind me of the small restaurant we frequented in Battersea 20 year's ago when were pinned to jobs in London - Cantanetta Venaguzzo. Two brothers ran this little Italian oasis in Battersea Square near to the Thames. I seem to remeber one of Jane's old college friends had a house boat nearby. A meal out was broadly a monthly treat and we kept coming back to this local restaurant. There were always reminders of food from our honeymoon in Unbria an often something new to discover on the menu. The two brothers who ran the restaurant were typical Italian passionate foodies - giant grey bouffants holding court. At 32/33 I just wanted to be that sophisticated - to be able cook proficiently, have an encyclopedic knowledge of Italian wine and an immediate answer to the question of "What's good". I even coveted the front of house Brother's tortoiseshell reading glasses. Italians are annoyingly cool. If you were lucky they would have deep fried courgette flowers on the menu. The flower and tiny bud of the female courgette flower and served in a light and crispy tempura batter. I think we reserve that experiment for another year. Growing the Squash this year has sorted out in my head which are the female and male flowers at least.
Hunting through the boiling sea of Squash leaves and tendrils I counted at least 15 squash of various types. Having chosen a large handsome Turk's Turban with a nicely developed "acorn" on top striped white and green I set about researching cooking techniques.
I have cooked Butternut Squash before - softening chunks in butter or olive oil to be added to a risotto. I have also roasted pieces of Pumpkin to make a soup years ago. Time to hit the books. I bought Jane a set of two Nigel Slater cookbooks - Greenfeast - for Christmas. These two vegetable cookbooks are delightful. They are arranged by season - Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter. There are plenty of simple ideas for Squash and I opted for a recipe that involved roasting sliced Pumpkin to serve with Couscous. I adapted the recipe to what we have in the store cupboard here and raised beds.
There is something unstated that calls for a degree of reverence with your own home picked produce. Every cut and step was novel for me. I appreciate that its wasn't a moon landing but I did have a degree of anxiety around not messing up the execution on this one. A simple Dauphinoise potato dish the night before was utterly wrong. I was only cooking a simple suppler for Jane and Elliot but it was the first outing for my Squash. Jane was happy to give up the kitchen for the evening as she had had a very annoying and reoccurring dislocation of her shoulder on the Sunday morning. An old injury that continues to frustrate and discomfort (an understatement) in equal measure. So it was good for me to step up for supper duty.
I have also been reading Salt, Fat ,Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat in an effort to reinvigorate and educate my cooking. A fuller description of that book should perhaps be left off for another post. I have barely begun to scratch the surface with that book but one of the first principles you learn from that "work" is that salting food correctly - I deliberately do not use the word seasoning here - is the first step to elevating flavour. So my Squash chunks went into a bowl of water as salty as my memory of the sea for a good 5 hours. The process of osmosis was given the opportunity to enhance the Squash cubes from the inside out. There was method in my madness. Roasting the Squash would bring out the sweetness and salting the Squash first would further enhance that sweetness without the need for great dollops of salt being added to the finished dish on top. The theory actually worked and that was a first for me. I am not set on a path of being mindful about the treatment of ingredients to bring out the best of its flavours. When I have time - other Samin suggestions involve salting meat a day before. I was already onto a home run the Squash because of their with freshness and a lack of chemicals in any event. Some writers would hold that you should wait until the first frost to harvest a Squash - Dubai however beckons and I will be leaving shortly to see out the rest of the year "in the Sandpit".
The next treatment was simple - Good olive oil and plenty of it. Zatar - a spice familiar to the family from the Middle East and some chilli flakes. In this case we have some great dried Mexican chillies knocking about the place that are regulary toasted and whizzed for for all sorts of dishes. Next the top shelf of the Aga for thirty minutes. I made a simple Couscous - under Jane's winged direction with a some chicken stock, lemon juice and chopped basil. Some of the Rainbow Chard from the beds was stir fried in walnut oil with garlic. Without any cognisance on my part we almost went Vegan for the evening - a vegetable stock would have made teh dish vegan friendly. Often you do not enjoy what you have cooked yourself because of the stress and fuss but on this occasion I was very happy to tuck in.
The squash had a superb depth of flavour and after an initial crispy bite was silky smooth. This was real slow food. The seeds were planted back in April. The baby plants went into the raised beds during June. The first fruit was harvested in the first week of September and the chopped Squash chunks then relaxed in a bath of salted water for 5 hours. Finally the chunks were simply roasted in spice and oil for an uncomplicated finish. All of that care paid back dividends on this occasion.
We have hundreds of gardening and cookbooks and I have been guilty my whole life of that old adage of spending more time reading about growing and cooking produce than getting on enjoying the process for myself. Growing and eating your own food have to be part of life - it is a decision for the next weekend. The rewards of all of the little steps - even the reading - are self evident.
This was a good watershed. Simple, thoughtful, delightful, practical and rewarding. The garden outside has suddenly been elevated to a garden packed with kitchen promise and discovery. I have no idea which of the below are Honeybear or Hunter. I am thinking that the first picture is Hunter. The week before I fly back to the Gulf I now need to try everything on offer in the raised beds. Jane I wanted the whole process at Oaklands to be beautiful as well as bountiful. Every day spent here has the potential to be both. A few hours of investment can pay back with weeks of delight. One simple dish of Squash has made my Autumn in so many ways because it points to years of exploration to come. All I now need is a village show !
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