Gratin de courge spaghetti, noix et lardons

It saddens me when people attemp to pass off food items as something they’re not: they’re selling those foods short, and setting eaters up for disappointment. No, meatless burgers are not at all like beef burgers, carob chips have nothing to do with chocolate chips, and I don’t know in what parallel low-carb universe spaghetti squash is seen as an acceptable substitute for actual, durum wheat spaghetti.

But those food items do have unique qualities of their own — well, except for carob, which is vile — so why not simply tout them as such?

Going back to the spaghetti squash, it deserves a lot better than to be treated as a stand-in for pasta. It is a wonderful winter squash in its own right, with a delicate flavor that’s not too sweet, and it is therefore a good choice for those who find winter squash a bit cloying.

But its most distinguishing feature — and the source of the misunderstanding — is its flesh, which easily separates into soft strands when cooked. The spaghetti comparison ends there, naturally, but those little tufts of filaments do create a delightfully fluffy mouthfeel that sets this cucurbitaceae apart from its peers.

Some recipes suggest cooking spaghetti squash in the microwave, but I no longer own one, so I just roast it in the oven — a method that is all in all preferable, as it also serves to deepen the flavor of the squash and evaporate some of its moisture, preventing it from getting soggy. All you need to do then is run a fork across the flesh, and the strands will appear before your very eyes, like magic.

In late afternoon on Sunday, as I was pondering what to do with my gourd, I got many great suggestions through a Twitter brainstorm: Kim likes to cook the strands like potato pancakes, with green onions, ginger and soy sauce; Anna eats her spaghetti squash with tomato soup; Yasmin dresses hers with pesto and chili oil; Michelle pointed me to this Gourmet recipe; Ariane suggested brown butter and sage; Lucy likes to layer the squash lasagna-like, alternating with spinach and ricotta and a Moroccan-inspired tomato-lentil sauce.

But, as is usually the case in my kitchen, I ended up devising a recipe inspired by what I had on hand: the thickish slice of smoked bacon that needed using, the bowl of walnuts from our neighbor’s sister’s garden, and the butt end of a mozzarella log I’d bought for a pizza aux cèpes made with ceps I hunted and captured in the forest last Thursday (see below).

This lineup of ingredients spelled gratin quite clearly: I roasted the spaghetti squash, arranged half of the flesh in a baking dish, sprinkled it with browned strips of the bacon and crumbled walnuts, layered the rest of the squash on top, covered with thinly sliced mozzarella, and topped with breadcrumbs to foster crunch. The whole thing went back under the oven grill for a few minutes, and then dinner was ready.

We had it as our main course, which left room for slivers of salted butter caramel tatin left over from the previous day’s dinner party, but it would also be lovely as a side and, come to think of it, a most suitable one if you’re cooking for Thanksgiving this week.

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Chewing giraffe provided by Wildlife 2008.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ne pas mâcher ses mots.”

Literally translated as, “Not chewing one’s words,” it means expressing one’s opinion plainly and bluntly, with no concern for how it’s going to be received. It is equivalent to the (similarly food-oriented) English expression, “Not mincing words.”

Example: “Les journalistes adorent l’interviewer parce qu’il ne mâche pas ses mots.” “Journalists love to interview him because he doesn’t chew his words.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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Ever since I received an electric steamer for my birthday last summer, I have been steaming vegetables with abandon.

Before that, I used a set of those bamboo baskets that you nest in a wok if you have one (I don’t) or place on a saucepan that’s never quite the correct size for optimal steam circulation. That thing sputtered and leaked and drove me a little crazier every time I used it, so this new appliance was a considerable upgrade. It is also beautiful and roomy and easy to clean, and I am pleased as punch with it.

The flavor of this sauce is rich but bright, and its subtle nuttiness enhances the other elements on the plate like magic.

So I have been steaming a lot of vegetables lately, often with a stalk of rosemary and a clove of garlic in their midst, and I have therefore been facing the only challenge that this cooking method entails: finding worthy dressings to bolster the vegetables’ flavor.

A drizzle of good olive oil, a quick yogurt sauce with a squirt of lemon, a thin coating of pesto — these are all lovely ways to do just that, but my current favorite is this: a simple tahini sauce with a few herbs thrown in.

Most of you are probably familiar with tahini (or tahina), a paste made of sesame seeds, hulled and ground. It is a ubiquitous ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisines, including those of Lebanon and Israel, and it is particularly well known as a key component of hummus or halva.

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Cake marbré au chocolat

I grew up eating a store-bought chocolate marble cake called Savane. Created in the sixties by a French manufacturer that was acquired by an American company shortly thereafter, it came as a whole loaf cake in an ocher and brown box. The bottom of the loaf was wrapped in a paper liner that you peeled off as you sliced your way through the cake, the crumb was fluffy as only factory-made cakes can be, and I loved it.

My parents did not buy it for us — I don’t remember why, since they did get various types of supermarket cookies on our request — so I only indulged when I was at my friend Emilie’s house, or when we raided the grocery store for sweet and/or salty things after an afternoon spent splashing about at the pool.

I hadn’t had it for years when I tried it again as an adult, and of course it was a letdown. Not only was the flavor a weak shadow of my recollection — the chocolate dull, the vanilla fake — but the list of ingredients had me shaking my head. (And this is marketed as a simple and healthful snack for your kids, you know, so you can make sure they get their daily recommended intake of hydrogenated palm oil.)

This recipe produces a delectable and very moist loaf, and the secret for that lies in the syrup that is brushed on the cake as it comes out of the oven.

The good news is that, unlike other store-bought treats from my younger days, like, say, ghost-shaped puffed potato chips, or strawberry-flavored shoestrings, this one is designed to emulate the kind of gâteau marbré you might bake from scratch, so it is fairly simple to recapture that particular taste memory.

And it is even simpler if a trusty friend of yours has included a recipe for it in one of her books*.

The basic idea behind the marble cake is that you pour alternating layers of contrasting batters in a cake pan, so that you get a nice visual effect in each cut slice (I must warn you it is possible to take the concept too far). Some recipes have you stir each layer delicately into the previous one, to create marble-like swirls, but the original Savane is striped a bit like a zebra (savanna, zebra, get it?) so it’s fine to leave the layers as is.

The chocolate and vanilla batters in this recipe are, in essence, identical, so you could make a single batter that you’d divide at the end before adding the vanilla or chocolate flavoring, but I think Pascale’s method is neater: she has you prepare the two batters side by side in separate bowls, a process that is especially easy if you’re using a digital scale and those handy, easy-to-divide weight measurements (hint hint).

Pascale’s recipe produces a delectable and very moist loaf, and I think the secret lies in the syrup that you brush on the cake as it comes out of the oven. I’ve made it multiple times now, and it is a real crowd-pleaser: French friends never miss the Savane reference, and I like that it feels homey but just a little elaborate, prompting at least one person to ask about the marbled technique, always.

I sometimes use whipping cream in the batter, as Pascale suggests, but most often yogurt or buttermilk: the substitution means the cake dries out a hair faster, but if you think it will be consumed within a couple of days in your house, that’s what I recommend.

Over time, I’ve also incorporated two other modifications: I like to add a sprinkle of cacao nibs between layers of batter, and spike the syrup with cacao liqueur**, which you can’t taste as such in the cake, but serves to deepen the overall chocolate flavor.

* The title of the book, Slunch, is a contraction of supper and lunch and, by symmetry with the brunch, it is an informal meal that you host for your friends (and optional kids) in late afternoon on a Sunday.

** This cacao liqueur is made by artisanal distillery Bertrand in Alsace, and I bought a bottle at Stéphane Gross’ chocolate shop in Paris, Déclinaison Chocolat.

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