Serving size: two adults

Flavor size: orange

Outcome: squash that tastes like it was roasted inside of that one turkey who spent 364 days preparing for life after Thanksgiving.

Gotchas

Onion, chili powder, black pepper, and Tajín are the only optional ingredients.

When you happen to have all the other ingredients, or when you’ve planned for this dish, or when Fabrizio has recently stocked your larder. That is when.

This recipe only works when it’s when.

Would I sacrifice myself for the sins of mankind if I didn’t have God in my cabinet? I would get around to it later. May we in this one respect be like Jesus.

Phases

1. Preparation: the garlic
2. Infusion of garlic into oil

3. Preparation continued

   • The squash
   • The herbs
   • The onion
   • The mustard chicken stock
4. The slow sauté (braise pt. 1)
5. The fast sauté (braise pt. 2)
6. The simmer (braise pt. 3)
7. The adjustment
8. The eat

Equipment

A pan large enough that most - say, 3/4 - of the squash pieces can rest on the bottom of the pan without piling on top of each other. Avoid using a non-stick pan if you can.

Ingredients

What’s missing here?

That’s right: no salt. The salted butter + the chicken stock was exactly right.

Obviously, if you need more salt, add salt. (At the very end.)

Let’s Go

We start with the garlic because it slowly infuses our oil in the background while we do the other prep.

There are two garlic flavors you’ll end up with. The slow-sautéed garlic flavor of the oil is subtle but coats everything. The sharper flavor of the garlic that you briefly sauté shows up in the foreground and varies from bite to bite.

1. Preparation: the garlic

Chop 1/2 of the garlic into five large pieces.

Make them big enough to withstand 10 minutes of low heat without burning.

Dice the remaining 1/2 of the garlic.

2. Infusion of garlic into oil

Add the olive oil and one of the tablespoons of butter to a pan.

Heat the butter until just melted.

Set the heat to ULTRA LOW.

Place the largely chopped garlic evenly around the pan.

Leave this in the background while doing the remaining prep.

Every five minutes check to make sure the garlic isn’t burning. If it browns at all, flip it. If it’s already been flipped and both sides are brown, turn off the heat.

3 (i). Preparation continued: the squash

Peel the squash.

Get the seeds out of it.

Chop the squash into 1- to 1.5-square-inch chunks as evenly as you can.

This whole phase sucks. I hate it.

3 (ii). Preparation continued: the herbs

Take the leaves from the thyme and the needles from the rosemary.

Mix them with the sage and dice it all together.

3 (iii). Preparation: the onion

Dice the onion

3 (iv). Preparation continued: the mustard chicken stock

Scoop the Better Than Bouillon into a cup.

Add near-boiling water and stir until the Better Than Bouillon is dissolved.

Add the mustard and stir until it’s dissolved.

4. The slow sauté (braise pt. 1)

At the end of this phase the squash should not yet be soft but ideally it has slightly caramelized on the outside. Whereas the rest of this recipe is objectively good and serves as a meaningful indicator of whether your tongue and nose are operational, the chili powder depends completely on preference. Certain people from certain environments need a certain amount of heat (as in hot sauce) in order to differentiate the taste of what they’re eating from wet cardboard. Accommodating this requirement alters nothing about the down-home, Murrican kitchen, good old-fashioned turkeyness of the result.

Place the squash chunks into the pan and turn the heat from ULTRA LOW to medium-low.

Add the red chili powder and pepper as evenly as possible.

Stir continually for ten minutes.

5. The fast sauté (braise pt. 2)

The reason you’re adding the aromatics now is that they need to be fried rather than simmered in order to infuse the oil BUT they can only handle a short amount of heat.

Add the onions, the remaining (small-diced) garlic, and the herbs.

Let them cook for 90 seconds, stirring vigorously.

6. The simmer (braise pt. 3)

At the end of this phase, the squash should be soft and the sauce should be thick-ish. If it’s not thick-ish, remove the squash and let the sauce condense on medium heat for an extra couple minutes.

Add the mustard chicken stock.

Cover the pot.

Let it be for 10 minutes.

7. The adjustment

There may not be quite enough acidity in the squash.

If you find that you’d like more acidity, cautiously sprinkle a little Tajín. Stir, taste, repeat.

It is very easy to overdo this.

8. The eat

Eat the food using your hands, mouth, and digestive system.