Roasted Butternut Squash with Cumin Seeds, Feta and Pistachios
- Makes4 servings
- Cook Time50 minutes
- Active time plus cooling20 minutes active
- 3
This flavor-packed winter squash side dish is an adaptation of a recipe from “365: A Year of Everyday Cooking and Baking” by Meike Peters, an award-winning cookbook author and food blogger. The subtle earthy sweetness and velvety texture of roasted butternut is a backdrop for vibrant accents: smoky, savory cumin; salty, briny feta; and nutty, crunchy pistachios. We like the flavor pop of lightly crushed cumin seeds; a mortar and pestle are a low-tech way to crush the seeds, or you can pulse them a few times in an electric spice grinder. Mixing the feta with a few tablespoons of heavy cream is an unusual technique, but the cream lends the dryish, crumbly cheese an unctuousness that helps tie everything together.
Don’t use precrumbled feta, as it lacks flavor and does not combine well with the cream. Also, don’t use milk or half-and-half in place of the cream; their lower fat content will cause them to curdle when mixed with the lime juice. Finally, don’t make the feta-cream mixture until the squash has been transferred to the serving platter. If left to stand for too long, the feta absorbs the moisture and the mixture loses its creaminess.
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