Sue's Recipes and Other Stories

Roast Squash with Bulgur and Feta (4-6)

Ingredients

450g squash or pumpkin fleshpeeled, deseeded and cut into chunks (prepared weight)
extra virgin olive oilfor drizzling and cooking
30g dried barberries
1 onionfinely chopped
2 garlic clovesgrated to a purée
½tsp ground cumin
¼tsp ground cinnamon
¼tsp ground ginger
1 red chillihalved, deseeded and finely sliced
200g bulgur wheat
300ml vegetable or chicken stockor boiling water
1 preserved lemonplus 2 tbsp juice from the preserved lemon jar
135g fetacrumbled
25g almondssome halved, others very roughly chopped, unblanched
10g parsleyroughly chopped
15g corianderroughly chopped
Juice of ½ large lemon
30g unsalted butter
¼tsp cayenne pepper
Greek yogurtto serve

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 190C/180C fan*/gas mark 5.
Put the pumpkin into a roasting tin where all the pieces can lie in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil, season and mix everything with your hands.
Roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until the pieces are soft and slightly caramelised at the edges. Keep covered so that the pumpkin stays warm. Meanwhile cover the barberries with just-boiled water for 10 minutes – no longer – then drain.
Sauté the onion in 2 tbsp olive oil in a fairly heavy-bottomed pan. When it’s soft and translucent, add the garlic, ground spices and chilli and cook for a further couple of minutes.
Stir in the barberries then tip the bulgur wheat into the pan. Pour on the stock or water and season. Bring up to the boil then turn down really low, cover and let the bulgur cook for about 15 minutes, until all the stock has been completely absorbed.
Fork the grains then cover the pan again and leave them for a further 10 minutes. Quarter the preserved lemon (flick out the seeds and discard them) and chop the rind and flesh.
Toss the bulgur wheat with this and all the other ingredients except the butter, cayenne and yogurt. Taste for seasoning and adjust if you need to.
Melt the butter in a small frying pan then add the cayenne. Serve the bulgur wheat in bowls with a dollop of yogurt on top of each. Drizzle the butter over the yogurt and serve.