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Caramelized winter squash with wheat berries, dried cherry relish and roasted onions

Time3 hours 30 minutes
YieldsServes 12.
Caramelized winter squash with wheat berries, dried cherry relish and roasted onions
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
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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 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, has been dubbed the “vegetable whisperer.” Restaurant critic Jonathan Gold ranked Le Comptoir No. 35 of his top 101 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 sautés 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 sautéed 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.

“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 sautéing wedges of Musquèe 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 Musquèe de Provence.”

As you might expect, he has firm opinions about the 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 very 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. Musquèe de Provence, which is also called fairytale, 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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Gary Menes’ tips for best results with that squash recipe

Though Gary Menes’ squash recipe might seem daunting, none of the individual steps is difficult. But the chef does have some tips to make the dish shine:

Menes cooks the squash with the skin on (“on the bone,” he says) because that helps hold the tender flesh together.

Don’t roast the squash as long as you normally would. Because it will be sauteed, it’s best to leave it a little firm to help keep it in one piece and to prevent overcooking.

Saute the squash over medium-low heat so it caramelizes slowly without scorching.

If the herbs in the saute pan start to brown, remove them and replace them with fresh.

Keep spooning the butter mixture over the squash while it’s sauteeing. “Not only is it transformative of the flavor, the squash caramelizes a lot more than if you just leave it setting in the pan.”

Menes prefers Plugra or another European-style cultured butter for its complexity of flavor.

Cook the orange juice for the relish at a slow simmer to keep the flavor fresh and to avoid scorching.

Add the pumpkin seeds and the raw onion to the relish at the very end to keep their pop of texture and flavor.

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Wheat berries

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

1

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

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

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.

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.

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.