As it's Hallowe'en, I've decided to come up with an idea suitable for this most American of festivals. Here in London, it's also suddenly cold and frosty. I think this recipe would work well. I've gone for butternut squash rather than pumpkin. It's also simple- and that's no bad thing.
Slice up a red onion and fry it gently in oil and butter. When the onion's soft, turn down the heat to a low setting and add some chorizo sausage, chopped up into cubes. The chorizo should take about ten to fifteen minutes to cook.
In the meantime, remove the skin from a butternut squash, and cut it in half. Chop the squash into small chunks and cook it gently in a separate pan with butter, first seasoning it with a few pinches of nutmeg and some decent black pepper.
Go back to the chorizo and add some crushed garlic. This will take a few minutes to cook. Make sure it doesn't burn.
Finally, remove the cooked chorizo, red onions and garlic and place them into a clean pan. Add the cooked butternut squash, and some baby tomatoes, which you've previously roasted whole in the oven. Warm the pan through, check the seasoning and finish the dish off with some chopped coriander and a squeeze of lemon.
The secret with this recipe is that the three main ingredients are cooked separately in their own juices, and then just gently folded together at the end. Butternut squash has a delicious, slightly musty, autumnal taste and you don't want that to be overpowered by the spicy paprika flavours going on in the chorizo.
