Whole roasting a massive fairy tale squash was not in the plans yesterday. Early in the day we had the oven space and the squash so we figured why not. The squash had been cryo-blanched several times over. It sat outside on our patio table through multiple fall freezes and thaws. We had no idea what kind of shape it was in. After roasting the pumpkin we witnessed excessive amounts of liquid pouring out of it. This squash produced about 4 quarts of liquid. The flesh became stringy, and noodle-like, reminding some of a large version of spaghetti squash. The juices were the star. They were rich and intensely sweet, with deep roasted flavors. It appears the cryo-blanching broke the squash down internally allowing the juices to flow. This left us with a wonderful elixir and moist, stringy pumpkin flesh. Now we have added a functional step to the vegetable cooking process. It is eye opening because we were so focused on freezing vegetables in order to "cook" them that we completely missed the opportunity to use it as the first step before applying heat. What's interesting is that we've utilized this idea in cooking meat, but needed that extra push to apply the technique to vegetables.
Years Past
