Vinny's Butternut Squash Confit

Total Time:

50 mins

Serves:

Serves 4 - 6

We saw Vinny make this wonderful squash dish during Restaurant Wars in Season 2 of Top Chef ™. The dish earned rave reviews from the judges.

Butternut Squash has great texture and is never offensive, but it is a carrier for other flavors. Inherently it doesn't taste of much. I chose sumac as my own preferred flavor, but if you're a fan of spices, I also tested with replacing sumac with Shichimi Togarashi and my testers loved that, too.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons sumac
4 oz butter
1 cup light oil (grapeseed works really well)

Instructions

Slice the squash and roll each slice in salt, pepper and sumac (or other seasoning of your choice) and leave the squash for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 240º F.

Melt the butter over medium heat in the skillet and then sear the squash slices to brown the entire surface area - this helps prevent the finished dish from being too oily.

Tip the oil over the squash in the skillet and turn the heat down to low until you can see that the oil is hot then carefully transfer the skillet into the oven. Heat for 30 minutes, then use a slotted spoon to move the squash onto kitchen paper to drain. Serve while still hot.