As mentioned earlier, I am doing an Indian Thanksgiving this year (please construct your own ironic, historical joke). I’ve already posted the recipe I improvised for spicy cranberry chutney; in place of the roast turkey I’m going to do braised turkey drumsticks in the style of a Kerala “roast” (I’m going to do a dry run with a couple of drumsticks tomorrow, and if it turns out well I’ll post that recipe on Tuesday); I’m also making a Bengali-style sweet pulao in place of stuffing; and I’m making two dishes with roasted squash: one a spicy and sour soup with tamarind and coconut milk, and the other this mash with ghee and garam masala. I made a test batch today and it came out quite well. I might tweak it a bit for the main event but so that I remember what I did here’s the base recipe. 

Ingredients

• One medium ambercup squash (a little less than 3 lbs) cut in half and seeds/pulp scooped out.
• 2 tblspns ghee.
• 1 large pinch garam masala.
• 1 small pinch chaat masala
• 1/4 tspn hot chilli powder/cayenne
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Salt to taste

Preparation

1. Heat your oven to 450ºF.
2. Put the squash halves cut-side up on foil on a baking sheet and smear the flesh lightly with some of the ghee.
3. Once the oven is heated up roast the squash for 50-60 minutes or till the flesh has darkened and just begun to caramelize.
4. Remove from the oven, place in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher.
5. Add all the ingredients but the salt and mix thoroughly.
6. Add salt a little at a time, checking as you go.

Notes

1. I made my own cinnamon-heavy garam masala blend for this recipe but if you have a garam masala mix you like a lot just go with it. Or for a North African twist use ras el hanout instead.
2. If you don’t have chaat masala roast 1/4 tspn worth of cumin seeds lightly in a skillet, grind it and use instead.
3. Adjust the chilli powder and honey up or down to your preference.
4. I use ambercup squash because other than being a delicious squash it has two great virtues for a dish like this: first, and most important, it does not need to be peeled; second, it has lovely dark orange flesh which makes the dish more striking.
5. I don’t know that we’ll eat all of this batch in mash form. I don’t want us to get sick of it before Thanksgiving even gets here. I’m thinking I might use half of it the way one of my friends recommended in a comment on my paratha recipe post: to make dough for sweet/spicy parathas.