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Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe

delicata squash recipe

One of the best things about being a gastronome and a restaurant professional at an award winning restaurant is that my work environment is a constant source of inspiration. Some of the dishes we serve at the Osteria are incredibly complicated and require hours to prepare. Other menu items are based on grandmother’s traditional recipes. The simple, classic dishes that haunt me the most. They compel me to tear off my waiter’s uniform, get into my home kitchen, and cook.

A new contorni (that’s Italian for side dish) went onto the menu last week. Ever since that first pre-shift bite of the buttery sweet squash with browned butter and sage, I’ve been obsessed with the need to figure out how to duplicate those warm, sweet flavors.

Lucky for me and my culinary obsessions, the Delicata squash contorni is a rather simple one to make, and requires only basic cooking techniques.

Continue Reading for a Delicious Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe! »

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Brown Butter is on everyone's lips

If you’ve recently found yourself in the dairy aisle of the grocery store unable to locate a delicious something called “brown butter”, you are not alone. There are lots of people out there, even smart food professionals like my friend Nick, that don’t know exactly what that lovely, nutty liquid is.

But don’t worry. Just this week, it seems, there are suddenly a ton of food bloggers out there just chomping at the bit to talk about brown butter and what exactly one should do with it.

B+H=BB*
(Butter plus heat equals brown butter.)

Brown butter is, essentially, butter that’s cooked just before it burns. Put it in pastries and they suddenly taste a lot better. Drizzle it over Italian spaghetti with fried sage and you have one of the simplest, most elegant pasta courses ever. Pour it on fresh from the garden vegetables and potatoes and watch people’s eyes roll back.

And now, thanks to Michael Ruhlman, author of the amazing book The Elements of Cooking, and a number of other bloggers weighing in on the subject, there’s plenty of information to be had about the glories of brown butter.

Check out the following great blogs:

Brown Butter can be broken down to its elemental parts to make some really cool stuff.
Use it to make an amazing cake by Suzanne Goin that’s so good you’ll swoon over it.