Squash

No less than meat and fish, vegetables are enhanced by the smoky perfume and radiant heat of the grill, whether served plain with a simple salsa verde or vinaigrette, stirred into a risotto, or combined into a grilled version of a vegetable stew such as ratatouille or peperonata. Grilled potatoes can be made into an intriguing potato salad that is even tastier when it includes a few grilled scallions. Different vegetables require different grilling approaches, and some vegetables can be grilled in more than one way. In general, grill vegetables over a medium to medium-hot bed of coals; a hotter fire will scorch the vegetables before they cook through. Conveniently, the fire is often at the perfect temperature for vegetables after the meat or fish has been grilled. You can also distribute the coals to create areas with different temperatures, so that one area burns hot while the other is medium-hot, allowing you to grill vegetables at the same time as a steak, for example. Use the hand test. If the fire is medium-hot, you should be able to hold your hand over the grill for about 4 seconds. Clean the grill well and oil it after it has heated up, before putting the vegetables on. Summer squash, eggplant, potatoes, and onions should be sliced 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick, as uniform as possible. Cut peppers in half or in quarters and clean out the ribs and seeds. Onion slices can be skewered flat, which makes them easier to turn. (Soak skewers in water for a few minutes to keep them from igniting.) Salt the vegetables. This can be done ahead of time, but note that salting accelerates moisture loss, so don’t be alarmed by liquid around them when you’re ready to grill. Brush olive oil generously over the vegetables before grilling. They can also be tossed with chopped herbs. After the vegetable slices have been on the grill for a few minutes, rotate them a little over 90 degrees to make a nice crosshatch of grill marks. After a couple more minutes turn the vegetables and finish cooking, rotating them once more to make grill marks, and turning them again, if necessary. Take the slices off the grill as soon as they are tender. Check for doneness at the stem end, which always takes the longest to cook. (Again, tongs are my favorite grilling tool; they make turning the vegetables a breeze.) Leafy vegetables such as scallions, small leeks, and wedges of radicchio benefit from an initial moistening before they go on the grill. Oil them, and then sprinkle them with water or mist them with a spray bottle. Turn them often as they grill to prevent scorching, and keep sprinkling or misting them to keep them moist. To accelerate their cooking, invert a metal bowl over them, to steam them while they grill. Some vegetables are better when cooked until tender in boiling water before being finished on the grill: asparagus, for example, and leeks that are larger than scallions, and small artichokes and potatoes, whole or halved. For easy turning on the grill, skewer potatoes and artichokes, taking care that all the cut faces are on the same plane when skewered to ensure equal contact with the grill. Tomatoes can be grilled, but they need a hot fire. Cut them in half and slide them onto the grill, cut side down. Let them grill for 3 minutes to seal the flesh before trying to rotate them. Be sure to clean the grill before you grill anything else, as tomatoes are a bit messy. Vegetables such as eggplants, summer squashes, and peppers can be cooked whole, but because they will take longer to cook through, the fire should be medium rather than medium-hot. Make a couple of deep incisions in their sides to speed up the cooking and to keep them from bursting from a buildup of steam. Corn can be grilled with great success after a little preparation. Peel back the husks, leaving them connected at the base of the ear, and remove all the silk. Season the corn with salt and pepper and a little chile or herbs, if you want; brush with some butter or o...

Minestrone means “big soup” in Italian: a big soup of many vegetables. In order for them all to be cooked through at the same time, they’re added in stages. First a tasty soffritto (a base of aromatic vegetables) is made, long-cooking vegetables are added and moistened with water or broth, and the soup is brought to a boil, at which point the more tender vegetables are added. Dried beans and pasta are cooked separately and added at the end. The recipe below is for a classic summertime minestrone, followed by seasonal variations. The soffritto can be made of onions only but often includes carrots and celery. Fennel can be substituted for the celery when a more delicate flavor is wanted. Garlic is always added at the end of the cooking to ensure that it does not burn. Be sure to use a heavy-bottomed pot and lots of olive oil. For a more hearty soup, let the soffritto cook to a golden hue; for a less robust version, don’t let the vegetables color at all. Either way, the vegetables should be cooked through to give the soup the full benefit of their flavors; this will take 10 minutes or more. They’re done when they look and taste good enough to eat on their own. The vegetables added after the soffritto—such as squash and green beans—are cut into pieces small enough to ensure that each spoonful of soup will contain a mixture. They’re added sequentially, according to the length of time they take to cook through without getting mushy. Greens need to be cut into bite-size pieces, too; if they’re cut in strips they can hang down and dribble hot soup on your chin or your clothes. Winter greens such as kale or chard take longer to cook and should go in with the first group of vegetables. Tender greens such as spinach will cook in just a few minutes and should be added towards the end of cooking. Salt the soup as it cooks; this will intensify and improve the flavor as a last-minute salting cannot. Dried beans—and pasta, if you’re using it—should be cooked separately before being added to the soup. Save the bean cooking liquid; it adds flavor and body to the soup. The cooked beans should be added during the last 10 minutes so they have a chance to absorb flavor, but not overcook. The pasta should be added at the very end so it doesn’t overcook and get bloated and flabby. To preserve its fresh flavor, the garnish of olive oil and cheese should be added to the bowls of soup, not to the pot. I always pass a bowl of grated cheese and a bottle of olive oil at the table.

Gloria Linss, grandmother of my editorial assistant, Valeria, was kind enough to provide us with the perfect ratio of sugar and cinnamon to squash for this recipe. She also pointed out that at her house they did not chop the squash; she would literally smash the whole gourd onto the kitchen floor until it broke into pieces. You can keep it old-school and do that, but I suggest you go with a very sharp knife: it makes cleanup easier. For a sweet finish, do as Gloria does and drizzle the squash with chilled evaporated milk before serving. The cold milk is the perfect counterpoint to the extravagantly sweet, melt-in-your-mouth cinnamon-scented squash.

This dish is one of the standouts at the Valladolid Thanksgiving table. Roasting acorn squash—or any vegetable—caramelizes the flesh and brings out its natural sweetness. Your veggies will be exponentially more flavorful than they are when you boil or steam them.

The state of Veracruz is the main growing region for chayote, a gourd that is eaten throughout Mexico and was once the principal food for Mayans and Aztecs. My family often serves it steamed, with a lime wedge. Here it is paired in perfect balance with spicy chorizo for an even tastier side dish.

Pickled veggies show up on tables in many restaurants, bars, and homes across Mexico. These are great alongside meat, atop a quesadilla, or alone as a happy hour snack.

While winter squash and pumpkins aren’t usually associated with Mexican food, they are actually found in many dishes across the country, especially in Oaxaca. The candied flesh is used in desserts, and its seeds are used in sauces called pipiáns. This recipe utilizes both the flesh of butternut squash, which is roasted until it caramelizes, and the seeds, which are toasted for a crunchy garnish. Serve this hearty bisque for dinner on a cool autumn night, or pour it into individual shot glasses for a savvy appetizer.

Why should stuffing be only a once- or twice-a-year treat? A savory bread pudding has all the comfort food flavors of stuffing with no need for the bird. This one is especially delicious, packed with homey winter vegetables and a hint of sweetness and spice. Serve it at your holiday feast or with any meal you want to make a touch more festive.

Much as I love vegetables, sometimes even I get a bit bored of the same old same old, and I’m always looking for easy ways to jazz up plain sautéed vegetables. I’ve found that adding something sweet and salty nearly always does the trick, and this colorful mix is a case in point. I always make extras so I can snack on leftovers the next day, adding some crusty bread for sopping up the flavorful vegetable juices.

In this country pizza is synonymous with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. In some parts of Italy, and especially in Rome, where I grew up, sauce and cheese are generally an either-or proposition, as in this veggie-centric version topped with both mozzarella and sharp pecorino but no sauce. I consider this the perfect item for an evening of playing poker (yes, I do like to play poker); it’s easy to eat with your hands, and it will satisfy vegetarians and meat-lovers alike because the olives make it meaty and substantial.

Oil flavored with sun-dried tomatoes and lots and lots of fresh herbs is the secret to these vegetarian sandwiches; I use it both as a marinade for the grilled veggies and also to moisten the bread. Creamy goat cheese smoothes out the sharp flavor of the tomatoes. This is perfect picnic food, whether you’re packing the sandwiches for the beach or as a reward after a long hike.

I like to serve this hearty soup at Thanksgiving. It has a smooth, silky texture and a beautiful color with a slight peppery flavor from the sage. Serve it with the cheesy Fontina crostini for an elegant meal.

This dish which has zucchini as its focus—is simply amazing when made in midsummer with tender, crisp squash, but it isn’t half bad even when made in midwinter with a limp vegetable that’s traveled halfway around the world to get to your table. Either way, it is an unusual use for zucchini, which here substitutes for meat in a kind of vegetarian spaghetti carbonara, the rich pasta dish featuring eggs, bacon, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Made with zucchini instead of bacon, the dish becomes a little less fat-laden, obviously, but it is still rich and delicious.

This dish is a minimalist’s take on the northern Italian autumn staple of tortelli filled with zucca, a pumpkinlike vegetable whose flesh, like that of butternut or acorn squash, is dense, orange, and somewhat sweet. The flavor and essential nature of that dish can be captured in a thirty-minute preparation that turns the classic inside out, using the squash as a sauce and sparing you the hours it would take to stuff the tortelli.

Beef stewed in dashi and mirin seems lighter and more delicate than beef stewed in stock or wine. It’s a dish that’s filling enough to satisfy on a fall or winter day but doesn’t have the heaviness sometimes associated with pot roasts and stews. Serve it with prepared Japanese mustard or wasabi on the side.

Usually, pumpkin means pie, a limited role for a large vegetable that is nearly ubiquitous from Labor Day through Christmas. But soup based on pumpkin—or other winter squash like acorn or butternut—is a minimalist’s dream, a luxuriously creamy dish that requires little more than a stove and a blender. If there is a challenge here, it lies in peeling the squash. The big mistake many people make is to attack it with a standard vegetable peeler; the usual result is an unpeeled pumpkin and a broken peeler. A quicker and more reliable method is to cut the squash up into wedges; then rest each section on a cutting board and use a sharp, heavy knife to cut away the peel. You’ll wind up taking part of the flesh with it, but given the large size and small cost of winter squash, this is hardly a concern.

This is my take on Senegalese chicken yassa, a rich, lemony, spicy, onion-centric dish traditionally served over rice. I've pulled way back on the peanut oil, which can make some versions of yassa too rich for my taste. In place of the oil, I built a relish around naturally rich avocados, and paired it with black-eyed peas dressed, with the advantages of a little acidity in mind, with a tangy vinaigrette.

Couscous is a small pasta—not a grain as most people believe—as well as the name of almost every North African dish that contains it. So there are innumerable fish, vegetable, meat, and chicken couscous dishes (see pages 526 to 527 for a couple of others). You can cook the couscous separately (see page 526) or steam it on top of the simmering stew, a nice touch for which you will need either a special utensil called a couscoussière or a steamer rigged inside of a covered pot in which you cook the sauce. If you are not comfortable cooking pieces of whole fish, substitute a firm fillet like red snapper or grouper and reduce the fish cooking time to about 10 minutes; do not overcook.

Although this stew has much in common with the humble American beef stew, it is legitimately Japanese and wonderfully flavored with soy, ginger, mirin (the Japanese sweet cooking wine, for which sugar or honey is an adequate substitute), winter squash, and, perhaps best of all, the peel and juice of a lemon. The combination is one of simple and delicious counterpoints that make this a great stew. Ambitious cooks may want to include dashi, the quickly made stock that is one of the most fundamental flavors of Japanese cooking, but the stew is great when made with chicken stock or, for that matter, water. Other cuts of meat you can use here: short ribs (which will require longer cooking time), bone-in chicken thighs (which will cook more quickly), veal shoulder or round.