Autumn is here and so are the wonderful winter hard squashes. I still have a few packages of frozen pumpking puree from last year and now is definitely the time to use them. For this dish I used a package of pureed Hubbard squash. I used a recipe from Batali’s “Babbo” cookbook for the flan, or sformato. It’s a basic custard made with eggs whipped egg whites and flavored with mascarpone cheese, parmesan and nutmeg.
I bought the purple carrots because I knew the color would just look excellent with the yellow/orange flans. The favor is pretty much the same as a regular sweet carrot. I cooked them simply with olive oil, salt and pepper. The mushrooms are done confit style. They are cooked in lots of olive oil in addition to garlic and sage. The olive oil is then reserved and used to make a vinaigrette for the finished dish. I tossed in some truffle oil to the mushrooms to make them even more heady and delicious. For garnish I used a few fried sage leaves. Since this was our dinner, I wanted to make it more substantial, so I added cubes of olive oil fried bread cubes.
