It´s autumn…of course the quality of the pumpkin and pasta is essential. I used what we call in german “Muskatkürbis”, maybe nutmeg pumpkin? I used my favorite new pasta Paccheri which is a big size pasta and needs also more time than the normal pasta. It´s utterly delicious…
that ^ looks great Martin.
If my memory is correct, you cooked it already and loved it. 
Now that you mention it…I believe I did and yes right in my wheelhouse.
Here your comments:
“Super delicious recipe, made it last night”
“the espelette pepper and nutmeg combined with the sage brown butter was a winning combination.
The resulting dish had a creaminess from cooking the pasta in the sauce”
Hi Martin
Would hot paprika be a suitable substitute for piment d’espelette, or would something else work better?
Salute !!!
Dave,
why not, just try. But be careful, not too much, as hot paprika has more pungency than piment d`espelette.
P.S. it is useful to use fresh young sage leaves. Old sage leaves taste a bit moldy.
Looks great Martin, perfect for fall. We’ll give it a try sometime in the next month.
Looks wonderful, Martin.
Some Italian friends made risotto in a similar way, making a watery base with the pumpkin and then cooking the rice in that. That was yummy!
What wine would you pair with your pasta? A white, I assume. It seems like riesling or some other aromatic grape would go well with this.
Nice recipe with an interesting assemblage that I’ve never thought of. We regularly do filled squash ravioli with butter sage sauce, and we did a roasted butternut squash and sage white pizza at an event recently, but I’ve never thought to make a sauce out of the squash.
Thanks again for your contributions.
John,
fair to say I drink RIESLING to everything. But in this case, I think we could drink a lot of interesting white wines with it. Condrieu, Chenin blanc etc.
Maybe I am wrong, but it looks like it is a very versatile dish.
Gin Gin
Martin
Soave is a winner
Inspired by this thread, I made risotto with butternut squash last night.
The recipe is, more or less (I was doing this from memory on the fly):
-1 butternut squash, cut into small cubes (~1/2 inch / 1.5 cm)
-1 cup/250ml arborio rice
-1 small onion, chopped
-A half cup/125 ml grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
-10 fresh sage leaves, cut or chopped finely
-A few tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (not sure what that is in metric)
-Chopped speck (smoked, dried ham) as a garnish
I boiled the squash for about 15 minutes in salted water, until I could mash it to a slushy consistency. (It’s better to have this a bit watery, rather than like mashed squash. It will be reduced when cooked with the rice.)
From here, it’s basic risotto technique: While the squash was cooking, I sauteed the onion in olive oil (butter would have been better with hindsight) in a 12"/30cm pan with high sides until the onion was transparent. Then I poured the rice in the pan and coated it with the oil/onion mixture. Then I splashed in enough dry white wine to just cover the rise and reduced that for a minute or two.
Next I ladled the squash liquid into the rice and began cooking. Ladle additional squash liquid as the rice begins to thicken. Because the liquid is thicker than the stock you normally use for risotto, you have to watch to make sure the rise doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. (I made my squash liquid a little too thick, so the rice took close to 25 minutes to cook. Twenty minutes would be more normal with a more watery base.)
Three or four minutes before I thought the rice would be done, I added the sage and stirred. Two minutes or so later, at the very end, I added the Parmigiano, stirring thoroughly to melt and combine it. I turned off the heat and then added the lemon juice and stirred the pan thoroughly.
I then sprinkled the chopped speck on top. (Another time, I would toast the speck first so it was crisp.)
A nice meal for a cool autumn night.
Sadly, my wife insisted on a red, so I chose a light Mencia. But an off-dry riesling or another aromatic grape like gewurtztraminer or sylvaner would have been a better match.
