Hi, I'm Chris Tavano for Tundra Restaurant
Supply. In today's episode I'm going to show
you how to properly cut your seasonal squash.
Here, we have a favorite acorn squash. Pretty
common, but also very tough as this is a very
hard gourd. Perhaps the easiest way to cut
this will be lengthwise with the grain as
opposed to going horizontal against it like
this. You're just getting a lot of ridge lines
that your knife could get stuck in and create
a lot of potential hazards for your fingertips.
So what I like to do from here is cut off
this little nub. A serrated knife with these
harder gourds might be a little bit easier,
especially to get started. From there, 1'm
going to put the knife in the middle of one
of these ridges. And be sure you never have
your fingertips underneath this blade; they'e
always wide, but you want to get the leverage
that you need. So go ahead and saw it in there.
Once you have it sawed in, then you can initiate
with the tip of the knife, and kind of like
an avocado, just go all the way around. Again,
you're keeping your hand on the back side
of the blade so that way when it pokes out
the other end you're not going to stab your
hand. Let's get through the last little stem.
Pretty easy, and from here you're just going
to clean it out like you did for the butternut
squash. The cool thing is you can just roast
these as-is with a little bit of salt, pepper
and butter. Or go ahead and stuff with a grain
like barley or quinoa or rice...sausage is
a great combination, sage are some great flavors.
Go ahead and roast at 400 for 40 minutes and
you have yourself a beautiful acorn squash.