Roast crown prince squash, ricotta and caramelised chilli sage butter

One of the most evocative cookbooks to have been published recently is Lori de Mori and Laura Jackson's Towpath, a series of recipes and reminiscences from the charmingly quirky Towpath Café. It's divided up month by month and this is in fact a September recipe but as squash is still in season and wonderful warming at this time of year it works equally well now.

Lori writes: This dish to me epitomises this time of year. The combination of the sweetness and earthiness of the squash with the crispy warmness of the sage work wonderfully as a pair. Add in a blob of rich, creamy and savoury ricotta and some caramelised sage and chilli butter and it warms the soul."

Serves 4

1 large or 2 medium crown prince squash, weighing around 2kg/41/2lb

2 tablespoons olive oil

Caramelised Sage and Chilli Butter (see below)

150g/51/2oz ricotta

salt and pepper

Notes

Any type of pumpkin or squash could be used here. You will just need a robust variety that is happy to be roasted and doesn’t have a high water content like spaghetti squash.

Preheat the oven to 210°C fan/450°F/gas mark 8.

Cut the squash into four. If you have one big squash, be very careful as the skin is super tough – I put a tea towel between my hand and the tip of the knife to prevent my hand going through the top of the blade. Remove the seeds and discard. Remove the skin. I find using a serrated knife the best option and if you get slightly further under the skin, it’s much easier to remove – you want to remove the green colour under the skin.

Cut into big wedges – I normally cut each quarter into three or four wedges lengthways.

Toss in the olive oil. Season and place on a large baking tray with the wedges standing up. Cook for about 25–35 minutes until the squash has browned and is fully cooked. This stage can be done in advance and kept in the fridge for 2–3 days and you can reheat without affecting the squash.

Make the Caramelised Sage and Chilli Butter (see below).

Plate up using one large platter or four individual plates. Place a bit of ricotta on the bottom so that it can secure the squash wedges, then layer up a few of the squash wedges and scatter some blobs of ricotta around. Layer up the rest of the squash and blob more ricotta over and around.

To finish, generously drizzle over the caramelised sage and chilli butter with lots of sage and lots of the butter. Season.

For the sage and chilli butter

bunch of sage

150g/ 5 ½ oz butter, cut into pieces

½ lemon, juiced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ –1 teaspoon chilli flakes

salt and pepper

Pick the sage, saving the stalks for a stock. In a medium-sized frying pan, place the butter in the pan with the sage leaves. Melt over a medium-low heat. Continue cooking until the sage leaves start crisping. Turn the heat to low to prevent the butter and sage from burning. Once the leaves are crispy, turn off the heat. Add the lemon juice to prevent the sage and butter from cooking further. It will sizzle loudly! Add the garlic and chilli flakes. Stir well and season to taste. Pour into an appropriate container and leave in a warm place until needed.

What to drink: Given the spicy butter I'd go for a viognier with this but you could also drink a good Soave.

The best wines to pair with squash and pumpkin

Extracted from Towpath Recipes and Stories by Lori de Mori & Laura Jackson published by Chelsea Green at £27. Photograph © Joe Woodhouse

Cauliflower curry, boiled eggs & coconut crumble

Cauliflower and eggs are two of my favourite things, here ingeniously combined by Dan Doherty of the Duck & Waffle in his brilliant book Toast, Hash, Roast, Mash.

Dan writes: "I fell in love with vegetable curries while spending time in India and Bangladesh – cauliflower curry being one of my favourites. The coconut works really well, adding flavour and a rich creaminess, with a crunch in the topping."

Serves 4–6

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

olive oil

1 cauliflower, broken into florets

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon onion seeds

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 onion, finely chopped

2.5cm (1 inch) piece of ginger, grated

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 red chilli, finely chopped

150g (5 ½ oz) cooked yellow lentils

2 x 400ml (14fl oz) cans of coconut milk

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

8 eggs, hard-boiled and shelled

a large sprig of coriander

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and brown the cauliflower florets on all sides.

Meanwhile put the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, ground turmeric, onion seeds and curry powder in a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast for a few minutes, shaking the pan, until you can smell the aromas and the spices look toasted.

Add the onion to the cauliflower pan and cook over a medium heat without letting it colour for 5–6 minutes, or until soft . Add the ginger, garlic and red chilli and cook for a further 3 minutes, again without letting them colour. Stir in the toasted spices and cook for 3 minutes, then add the cooked lentils and pour over the coconut milk. Season with salt and pepper, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a dry pan, toast the desiccated coconut over a medium heat, shaking the pan, until golden brown.

After the final 10 minutes cooking time, the cauliflower should be cooked but retain a little bite. Add the eggs and cook for 3–5 minutes more. Roughly chop the coriander, stalks included, and stir through.

Transfer to a serving dish and scatter the toasted coconut all over, like a crumble, then serve.

What to drink:

Assuming you manage to resist the temptation of having this for breakfast (I would be sorely tempted, personally) a glass of dry white wine such as a chenin blanc, (not too oaky) chardonnay or viognier would be delicious with it. And if you're having it for brunch, why not a glass of champagne or cava?

See also The Best Wine Pairings for Cauliflower

Extracted from Toast Hash Roast Mash by Dan Doherty, published by Mitchell Beazley, £20 www.octopusbooks.co.uk. Photograph ©Anders Schonnemann

Salmon in pastry with currants and ginger

This is one of my favourite recipes ever - made famous by the late, great George Perry-Smith and faithfully reproduced by one of his most talented protegés Stephen Markwick.

Aware that he thinking of stepping down back in 2009, I persuaded Stephen to share his best-loved recipes in two small books 'A Very Honest Cook' and 'A Well-Run Kitchen'. The first has unfortunately sold out but you can still buy the second which also contains Stephen's Scallops with Shellfish Risotto, Roast Chicken with Cream and Tarragon and Summer Pudding from the Culinaria website.

Stephen says: "The marrying of sweet ginger and currants with fish must go back to medieval times. George’s unique twist was to serve it with a light herby sauce, (sauce messine, below) which lifts what could be thought of as a slightly heavy dish to one that is so pleasurable to eat. We had customers who asked to be phoned up when we had it on the menu!

Although the recipe is incredibly simple the trick is to wrap the salmon in the thinnest of pastry and cook it in a sufficiently hot oven to keep the pastry crisp while keeping the salmon slightly pink in the middle.

The salmon should be wild or organic farmed if possible (Glenarm, Clare Island or Loch Duart I find the best of the farmed). I remember when we started at Bistro 21, late February always brought the first of the wild Wye salmon at a price you would laugh at now. It is best to use the middle or thick part of the fish - if you have a whole side of fish you can cut off the tail end and use it for another dish like fishcakes. It needs to be filleted, skinned and pin boned.

Serves 6

Ingredients

375g (13 oz) shortcrust pastry (Stephen's own recipe is on p. 61 of A Very Honest Cook)

110g (4 oz) butter, at room temperature

3-4 pieces stem ginger in syrup

2 tbsp currants

A thick piece of wild or top quality farmed salmon (at least 700g/1 1/2 lbs) filleted, skinned and pin-boned

1 egg, beaten

Salt and pepper

You will also need a thin baking tray with slightly raised sides so that any leaking butter doesn’t go all over your oven!

Method

First make your shortcrust pastry and rest it.

Cut up the butter and put into a bowl to soften. Chop the stem ginger finely and add to the butter with the currants and some salt and pepper and mix well. (I find the easiest way to do this is by hand so it is well mixed and soft enough to spread over the salmon but you can obviously use a wooden spoon.)

Cut the salmon fillet in half lengthways so you have two pieces. (There is even a natural line marked on the fish indicating where to cut!) Season one piece with salt and pepper and spread half the butter mix onto the side that was next to the bone. Now make a sandwich with the other piece by putting it top-to-tail so the salmon is an even thickness. Season the outer top half and spread the remaining half of the seasoned butter on it.

Now roll your pastry as thinly as you can into a rectangle. (I usually roll a piece slightly larger than I need, then cut it to size and discard the edges which are usually thicker.)

Place the salmon at one end of the rectangle leaving an edge of just over 1 cm (1/2 inch) for the seal. Brush all around the four edges with the beaten egg. Now lift the pastry over the salmon and press the edges firmly together to seal. A very slight overlap is OK because you can trim it. (The ends do not have to look pretty as they will be cut off too. Mind you, they do taste pretty good as the butter and salmon juices tend to leak into them!).

Your salmon parcel is now ready but needs time to rest in the fridge - at least an hour but preferably longer. It is best to put it on a double thickness of well buttered tinfoil. (A useful tip that works like magic to stop the salmon from sticking to the foil while it is cooking: When you bring it out of the fridge peel the salmon off the foil, then, with your hand just smooth the foil before replacing the salmon - it sounds a bit far-fetched but it does work!)

Place the salmon and foil on a thin baking tray. Brush the surface of the pastry with egg wash and cook in a preheated oven at 220°C/425°F/Gas 7 for 20 minutes (slightly longer if there is anything else in the oven though it’s best to cook the salmon on its own to keep the pastry crisp). You’ll need to turn the baking tray round half way through to cook the pastry evenly unless you have a fan oven. Rest the baked salmon for 5-10 minutes on top on the stove so that the residual heat will finish cooking it. If you cut it straight away without resting it the middle might still be too pink.

To serve: Carefully peel off the tinfoil and trim the excess pastry off the ends of your salmon parcel. Divide the salmon into six thick slices (a bread knife is good for this). Serve with sauce messine (below), new potatoes and a cucumber salad (thinly sliced, salted and pressed then rinsed and dressed with dill vinegar and oil).

If you'd like to know what kind of wine goes with salmon check out 10 Great Wine Pairings with Salmon

Sauce Messine

A really fresh and vibrant herb sauce.

Serves 6

Ingredients

25g (1 oz) parsley

25g (1 oz) chervil

20g (3/4 oz) tarragon

2 small shallots or 1 large shallot, chopped

1 egg yolk

300ml (1/2 pint) double cream

1 dsp Dijon mustard

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper

Method

Wash the herbs and pick the leaves off the stalks then put them into a blender with the other ingredients and blend well. Check the seasoning then tip into a heatproof bowl. Stand the bowl in a pan of boiling water and heat the sauce gently to avoid curdling it. (This should take about 10 minutes.) Serve with salmon or other fish.

What to drink: The butteriness of the salmon and the slight sweetness of the currants and ginger means you want a want a wine of some weight. Personally I think it's a great excuse to crack open a good white burgundy or other top class chardonnay but Viognier would work well too. If you wanted to drink a red I'd go for a Pinot Noir, probably burgundy again.

Moqueca baiana (Bahia-style fish stew)

If you're inspired to cook Brazilian with the Olympics kicking off this weekend try this classic fish stew from Thiago Castanho and Luciana Bianchi's Brazilian Food.

This stew is one of the most famous dishes of Brazil and, as its name implies, is traditional to Bahia state. It is prepared with coconut cream and dendê oil and served on a moquequeira (a clay dish made specially for serving moquecas). I usually make this with one of the most popular fish of our region, the filhote.

Serves 4

Spice paste

* 6 black peppercorns

* 1 tsp ground turmeric

* 10g root ginger

* 6 coriander seeds

* ½ pimenta malagueta or hot red chilli, deseeded

* 20g dried salt shrimps

Coconut cream

* 900ml coconut water

* 420g dried coconut meat

* 240g young (green) coconut meat

* 550g filhote or catfish steaks, or hake or halibut fillets

* juice of ½ lime

* salt

* 20ml dendê (palm) oil

* 30g onion, chopped, plus 30g onion, sliced

* 30g tomato, chopped, plus 30g tomato, sliced

* 5g garlic, crushed

* 3 pimentas-de-cheiro or other mild chillies

* 30g red pepper, sliced

* 20g green pepper, sliced

* 5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped

* 5g spring onions, finely chopped

1. First make the spice paste: process the black peppercorns, turmeric, ginger, coriander seeds, chilli and dried shrimp in a blender or food processor until a smooth paste forms. Transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.

2. To make a coconut cream, warm the coconut water in a saucepan. Put it in a blender with the dried coconut meat and process until the coconut pieces are very finely chopped. Strain through a fine sieve, then return it to the blender. Add the young (green) coconut meat, blend until smooth and creamy and set aside.

3. Season the fish with the lime juice and a little salt and set aside.

4. In a large clay pot, heat the dendé oil over a medium heat and sauté the chopped onion, chopped tomato, garlic, pimentas-de-cheiro and 1 tablespoon of the spice paste until the vegetables are softened.

5. Stir in 1.1 litres of the coconut cream, bring to a simmer, then add the fish and cook for 5 minutes.

6. Add the red and green peppers and the tomato and onion slices and cook for a further 5 minutes. Sprinkle with the coriander and spring onions before serving.

Tips from Thiago:

Dendê oil and dried salt shrimps are sold in Brazilian and African stores. Substitute a good-quality shop-bought coconut milk for the coconut cream recipe if you can’t find young (green) coconut meat to make it fresh.

What to drink: Although Brazilians themselves tend to drink caipirinhas or beer with food you might like the idea of serving a Brazilian wine. Marks & Spencer has put together the best selection of which I'd pick the Aracauria Riesling Pinot Grigio which is on offer at the time of writing at £42 a six bottle case (£7 a bottle). Otherwise I'd probably go for an Argentinian Torrontes. A fresh young Viognier could also work.

Extracted from Brazilian Food by Thiago Castanho & Luciana Bianchi, published by Mitchell Beazley at £30 www.octopusbooks.co.uk