One Tray Bake with Squash, Radicchio & Blue Cheese
Every Autumns I look forward to radicchio season. They are beautiful and bitter and delicious. And this recipe has been designed to balance out that bitterness with sweet squash, sharps and spicy salsa verde and salty blue cheese.
It’s also been designed to minimise washing up and allow you to prepare each element of the dish as the previous one is cooking! Enjoy.
Serves 4
30g sunflower seeds
1 small squash (around 750g)
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 heads of radicchio
small bunch of parsley, stalked removed, finely chopped
small bunch of coriander, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped (I used a hot padron pepper)
1 clove garlic, grated or crushed
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 jar cooked butterbeans (or use cannellini or haricot beans), drained
40g blue cheese (I use young buck), crumbled
Turn on your oven to 200*C. Put your sunflower seeds into a large baking tray and put into the oven as it heats up. By the time your oven is hot, the sunflower seeds will be nicely toasted - but keep an eye on them as they might burn if you leave them too long.
While your oven is heating, prepare your squash. If you are using a delicata, sweet dumpling or red kuri squash, there is no need to peel it as the skin is quite thin.
Cut off the stem of the squash, slice in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut the squash into wedges about 1.5cm across.
Put the squash pieces in a large bowl. Drizzle over one tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Use your hands to mix everything so it is all coated in the oil.
Remove the sunflower seeds from the oven and put the squash into the now empty baking tray to roast for 15 minutes. Make sure you spread out the squash so that it crisps up nicely, rather than steaming!
Meanwhile prepare the radicchio. Remove and discard any tough, overly bitter or dirty outer leaves - the inner leaves are more vibrant in colour and sweeter in taste. Cut the radicchio into 6 wedges and put into your bowl (The bowl previously used to dress the squash. No need to wash it out).
Drizzle a tablespoon olive oil over the radicchio and season with salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands to coat them thoroughly.
After the squash has been cooking for 15 minutes (it should be starting to get soft) put the radicchio into oven in the same baking tray and cook for 10 minutes.
Make the salsa verde. Chop the herbs and chilli, grate or crush the garlic and combine in your large bowl with the vinegar, 2 more tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper. You can add a drizzle of honey if you want it to sweeten it slightly.
After 10 minutes, take the baking tray out of the oven and add the drained beans to the same dish, The beans will try out and be less delicious unless they are mainly covered so try to get the bean underneath the squash and radicchio.
(To do this, move the radicchio and squash to one end of the baking tray, then add half the beans to the tray. Move the veg over the beans you’ve just added and repeat on the other side of the tray.)Put the dish back in the oven for another five minutes to warm the beans through.
(I just turn the oven off at this point. The remaining heat in the oven heats up the beans well enough for me.)When you’re ready to eat, take the tray out the oven. Add the crumbled cheese, dollop over the salsa verde and then sprinkle over the sunflower seeds.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a green salad and large slices of sour dough.