Well, this is. . .something. Something weird, actually. We’re making butternut soup with star anise and ginger shrimp today. So I peeled the squash and cut it up and washed up the knives, etc. Butternuts sweat pretty copiously and get slippery as a result, but no big deal.
So after I washed up, I noticed that my fingers felt odd. When I looked at them, a skin had formed on them and on my hand where I had been handling the squash. It’s sort of like the skin you might get from getting glue on your hands, and just about as easy to get off.
Am I going to wake up in a pod? Will I become some sort of squash-like creature, moaning and drooling in the night, searching out new victims for my insatiable cucurbita appetites?
Seriously, does anybody know what the chemical reason might be for this?
I’m pretty sure this is exactly what’s going to happen. You need to be put out of your misery now or else it’s going to lead to the downfall of society and human existance.
The end of world was supposed to be this year, right?
Some foods are meant to be served undiluted, and butternut squash is one of them;
this is the first time I have ever heard of such a food fighting back, though!
Maybe the squash counterattack was provoked by the fact that anise and shrimp are
especially, jarringly bad ingredients to consider mixing with it. (BTW although anise
is near the bottom of my list of favorites shrimp is near the top)
You know not of what you speaketh, sirrah. Squash, curry, shallots, garlic, simmered in chicken broth with anise: pureed without anise. Shrimp marinated in ginger, then grilled. Serve soup over it. Outstanding dish.
Butternut Squash has a mild, subtle, delicate taste. Broth aside, it would be completely
overpowered into nothingness by all the ingredients suggested above.
Butternut Squash + light butter + light salt = and no more.
While I see where you’re coming from, curried butternut squash soup (or just butternut squash curry) is quite delectable, too. Don’t worry–you can still tell it’s butternut squash. It’s not that delicate.
You haven’t tried it, so your opinion is based on pretty much zip point shit. People rave about this dish. Squash by itself is terrific, as are many foods, but saying it won’t add to a dish’s flavor is like saying carrots add nothing to soup stock.
I am confident your patrons rave about your every dish, and with good reason-- the great taste!
However, I stand by all I have said about butternut squash, whose presense is drowned out, into nothingness,
by the other ingredients. Your patrons would not notice if the squash alone was omitted.
Carrot is much stronger tasting than squash, and therefore not a good comparison.
My father, who actually lived in India for several years (WW2 era), learned curry,
and was fantastic at it: beef, chicken, shrimp and lamb.
I love curry, but it is hard to imagine it not being in the category of things
which make butternut squash flavor disappear. Maybe the slightest, tiniest pinch
of a pinch would work.
First, folks insulting the dish, are you for real? Because those clothes you’re wearing make you look fat, and also consider switching to a deodorant that doesn’t clash so badly with your body chemistry. I mean, if we’re gonna give advice about things we know nothing about, let’s do it.
Second, this may be an idiotic question, but could that coating be wax? A tiny bit of Googling suggests that butternut squash have a natural wax on their skins, and that produce shippers sometimes coat them in wax to preserve them. I’ve gotten the wax on my fingers before, especially when I’m peeling a roasted squash.
It’s the inside of the squash that puts that film on your hands, though. I had the job as a kid of peeling the squash for Thanksgiving dinner every year. That stuff kind of wells up out of the flesh of the thing and slimes all over your hands. Then when you wash it off your hands are all dried out. I used to complain about it every year but my mom was hardhearted.
I actually love butternut squash but it’s such a horrible trauma I only get it frozen now.
Yeah, it oozes out of the squash, forming beads on the surface that will turn semi-solid after a bit. It’s like a wax on your skin. I’m thinking perhaps these things are just very high in natural starches.
I think you’d be surprised. Butternut squash or (more usually) pumpkin make for fantastic vegetarian curries. (I find the two squashes fairly interchangeable.) Look up kaddu ki subji or mathanga erissery for ideas.
I haven’t noticed a film, but christ on a cracker, could butternuts be any harder to peel and cut? I made a pasta recipe once that called for it sliced into one-inch cubes, and I’m pretty sure sawing my arm off would have been easier.
It might just have been my knives not being sharp enough, but jeeeeeezus what a dense fucking thing it was.
They’re not user friendly. I bought a new peeler, rather than fight with them. And I have a Shun knife, which pretty much subdues anything slice-able. I make my wife core out the seeds.