Hamilton Squash

1 small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
1 butternut squash, halved and seeds removed
Olive oil
1 red onion finely chopped
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 tsp coriander seeds, pounded
a pinch or two of dried chilli to taste
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
5 sundried tomatoes, chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
100g/3.5oz basmati rice, uncooked
1/2 handful pine nuts, lightly toasted




First soak your porcini mushrooms for 5 min in 140ml/1/4 pint boiling water
Preheat to 230c/450f.
Using a tsp score and scoop out some extra flesh from the whole length of the squash. Finely chop the flesh with the seeds and add to a frying pan with 4 lugs of oil, the onion, garlic, coriander seeds, chili, rosemary and sun dried tomatoes. Fry for 4 min til softened. Add the porcini and half their soaking liquid. Cook for a further 2 min then season. Stir in the rice and pine nuts. Pack the mixture tightly into the 2 halves of the squash, and then press them together. Rub the skin of the squash with a little olive oil, wrap in tin foil and bake for about 1&1/4 hours.

I got a new Jamie Oliver book recently. Actually, it’s not a new book, it’s one of his older ones, but it’s new to me. When I saw this recipe I had to try it right away. Butternut squash is my younger son’s absolute favorite and it just looked so cool.

This was so easy to make. I’d say the hardest part is cutting the squash in half without mangling it, once you get that, the rest is cake. You don’t have to precook the rice, which is nice. It just cooks in the natural liquid of the squash, and it cooks wrapped in foil, so there’s no real clean up either.

This was really good. The rice was aldente, so if you don’t like that, I would cook it just a tiny bit longer (just a tiny bit though). The flavor combination was great, especially the coriander seed. Their taste surprises me every time, even though I use them a lot. It made the dish taste kind of exotic or something. The boys both loved it, and so did we.

This isn’t a fast dish, but it is easy and tasty and I think it could be used as a main dish (that’s what we did) or a side dish to something else.

Good stuff.