When charring butternut, a peculiar sweetness emerges. This sweetness pairs so well in salads with salty cheese or salted nuts. This time, I paired it with caramelized onions, salty feta cheese, and a sweet fig, peach, and pecan sauce with a lemon and soya glaze. That is a mouthful, but I assure you it is worth it.
This recipe is so quick to make, it is also so easy, cheap, and healthy. The pairing of onion and butternut might at first sound weird or strange, but I assure you it works so well.
So please follow along with me as I show you how I make this recipe!
Ingredients/Recipe
For this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
- a small butternut (roughly one cup),
- one onion,
- a smallish block of feta cheese (roughly 100grams),
- a pinch of sesame seeds,
- a tablespoon of sweetened fig, peach, and pecan sauce,
- a teaspoon of lemon juice,
- a small droplet of sesame oil (a lot goes very far), and
- half a teaspoon of thick soya sauce.
This will make about two portions (depending on how big a portion you can stomach!).
Method/Procedure
Like everything in cooking, begin by cutting everything. The thinner you can cut the onion, the better. I begin with the onion as it will flavor the pan for the cooking of the butternut. So I started by cutting the onion.
I then slowly caramelize the onion. Begin with a warm skillet with only oil. No sugar or anything else. Not even salt at this stage.
I then slowly cooked the onion until it was caramelized. I could have taken it further, but I still wanted some "crunch" in the onion.
Whilst this happened, I also made the sauce. This is not complex at all, I just mixed all of the liquid together.
When this is done, along with the onions, I cleared the skilled. The oil left in the pan is a little flavored with onions. I cut the butternut into small cubes and then add it to the skillet.
The goal is to char the butternut a bit. This will enhance the inherent sweetness of the butternut. Again, only oil is used nothing else. Not even salt.
When this is done, I added the sauce I made earlier. I just mixed it together with the butternut. The skillet will still be hot, so I added the onions to just warm it up a bit again.
After this, I plated everything up. I started with a healthy amount of butternut.
I added the onions which were now warmed up in the cast iron skillet.
I then added crumbled feta cheese. I actually forgot to put the sesame seeds on top of the feta cheese. But if I remembered, this would have been the stage of adding it.
There you have it. It is that simple and easy. It is really something special. I made this for @urban.scout and she asked for more. There is always a situation in which you make too little when you know it will be a good recipe.
The acid from the lemon juice and the salt from the cheese break through the sweetness of the sauce and the butternut. It really pairs well and in the future, I am going to make more of it! I really hope you will make this for you and your family.
For now, happy cooking and enjoy the process! Explore some alternative ideas and please let me know in the comments.
Stay safe.
The photographs used in this post are my own, taken with my iPhone. The recipe and writings used in this post are also my own.