{"id":1054,"date":"2010-10-10T10:34:48","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T15:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2010-10-10T10:34:48","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T15:34:48","slug":"winter-squash-taste-test-geeky-yes-but-don%e2%80%99t-you-want-to-know-the-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2010\/10\/winter-squash-taste-test-geeky-yes-but-don%e2%80%99t-you-want-to-know-the-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Squash Taste Test: Geeky, Yes, But Don\u2019t You Want to Know the Results?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Sometimes, you just don\u2019t know what you\u2019re getting yourself into. Take my boyfriend, Roy, for example. I\u2019m sure when he met me, he had no idea that one day he\u2019d be standing around the kitchen island (which he built for me) with seven spoons and a heap of roasted squash in front of him. Fortunately, what I didn\u2019t know (but suspected) when I met him, is that he\u2019s a really good sport. Last Sunday, he agreed to do the winter squash taste test with me. Lucky him.<\/p>\n

I dreamed up this little experiment after we found ourselves in possession<\/a> of several different kinds of winter squash. I\u2019ve loved taste comparisons ever since I was introduced to them at culinary school <\/a>years ago. We did a lot of them at Fine Cooking<\/em><\/a>, too, in order to recommend brands of chicken stock or canned tomatoes or olive oil to cooks. The worst taste test we ever did was butter. Tasting 8 different brands of butter in one morning will make anyone feel sick. The best? Bittersweet chocolate, of course. In fact, I\u2019ve learned so much about flavor differences in both natural and manmade products over the years from taste tests, that I\u2019m constantly urging other cooks to conduct their own at home. (A great place to start is with something you buy and use a lot, like extra-virgin olive oil. Buy a few different grocery-store brands and taste them side by side to find your favorite\u2014you\u2019ll be amazed at how different they are. Lately I\u2019ve been liking Trader Joe\u2019s Spanish olive oil.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>But\u00a0not to belabor the point, here\u2019s how we conducted the squash test: I cut each of the squash in half, scooped out the seeds, seasoned them ever so lightly with a little salt, and roasted them, cut side-down, on buttered parchment paper, until they were completely tender and lightly caramelized (about 1 hour 20 minutes on average). I turned the squash over, let them cool a bit, and scooped some of the flesh out of each for us to taste side by side. We each had one or two bites of each squash, and I took notes on the taste, texture, and color.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The\u00a0first thing I noticed of course, before we even tasted, was the big range in color and texture among the squash. (To identify the squash, see the photo at the end of the blog with IDs underneath.)The Red Kuri, Buttercup, and Butternut squash have\u00a0deep orangey-red flesh and a dense texture. The Delicata, Acorn, Sweet Dumpling, and Carnival all had a more yellowy\u00a0golden flesh, although within them, the texture varies (Delicata and Dumpling being creamy, Acorn and Carnival more fibrous.) The cool part of the comparison, though, was how different they all tasted. Here\u2019s what we thought.<\/p>\n

Butternut<\/strong>\u2014smooth, rich, dense flesh with a distinctively nutty flavor
\nRed Kuri<\/strong>\u2014texture like a baked potato, very robust smoky-nutty flavor, intensely \u201csquashy\u201d in a good way; deeply colored (Susie\u2019s favorite)
\nButtercup<\/strong>\u2014dense flesh with a very flavorful flesh reminiscent of caramel and peanuts
\nDelicata<\/strong>\u2014very creamy flesh, light and bright tasting, flavor hints of summer squash
\nCarnival<\/strong>\u2014moderately fibrous flesh, light sweet-sour flavor, our least favorite (sorry, Carnival)
\nSweet Dumpling<\/strong>\u2014flesh is a bit fibrous but creamy too, very sweet with a bit of tang, a light flavor
\nAcorn<\/strong>\u2014fibrous texture but with a complex nutty-sweet-bright flavor (Roy\u2019s favorite)<\/p>\n

So there you have our unofficial and biased results. I\u2019d recommend trying the Red Kuri if you haven\u2019t, and I\u2019d consider using it or Buttercup in place of Butternut in soups for a richer flavor. Though Carnival is a beguiling looking squash, I\u2019d definitely stick with the similar but better tasting Acorn for stuffing, or go with the pleasantly sweet and creamy Delicata or Dumpling.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Squash IDs, clockwise, starting from top left: Butternut, Acorn, Carnival, Red Kuri, Buttercup, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, you just don\u2019t know what you\u2019re getting yourself into. Take my boyfriend, Roy, for example. I\u2019m sure when he met me, he had no idea that one day he\u2019d be standing around the kitchen island (which he built for me) with seven spoons and a heap of roasted squash in front of him. Fortunately, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[8,45,1,19],"tags":[71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1094,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/1094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}