You may well have made hasselback potatoes the gorgeous potatoes that are cooked whole, but thinly sliced along their length almost all the way through, so that the slices fan out slightly as they cook and become crisp and golden. Here, I’ve used the same method to cook coquina squash (a close relative of the butternut) and glazed it with a sticky-sweet-slightly-spicy combination of maple syrup, soy sauce and chilli/chile. A great trick for cutting the thin slices without inadvertently cutting all the way through, is to lay a chopstick along both lengths of the squash, so that the knife will go no further once it reaches the sticks.
Ingredients
- 1 coquina squash
- 3½ tbsp (50 ml) maple syrup
- 4 tsp (20 ml) Indonesian soy sauce (ketjap manis)
- 5 tsp (25 ml) dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp dried chilli/red pepper flakes
- a bunch of spring onions/scallions, diagonally sliced
- a handful of fresh coriander/cilantro, roughly chopped
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 190˚C (375˚F) Gas 5. Cut the squash in half from base to top, and scoop out the seeds. Remove the peel using a vegetable peeler. Cut each half widthways into thin slices, stopping a little way short of cutting all the way through so that the squash halves are still intact. Lay them on a lightly oiled sheet pan.
- Mix the maple syrup, soy sauces and chilli/red pepper flakes together and brush generously over the squash halves, making sure to get plenty in between each slice. Bake for about 30–35 minutes, basting regularly, until the squash is cooked through and has a beautiful shiny glaze.
- Transfer to a platter and scatter over the spring onions/scallions and coriander/cilantro. Serve hot.
