Acorn squash
Cucurbita pepo · Squash
Top 10 pairings
Acorn squash — also called pepper squash or Des Moines squash — is a small, acorn-shaped winter squash with a deeply RIBBED, hard, dark-green rind, very often marked with a single splash of orange where it rested on the ground. Split one lengthways and the thin shell gives way to a hollow seed cavity ringed by pale yellow-orange flesh that is mild, lightly sweet and a touch fibrous. The classic treatment is to halve it, scoop the seeds and roast the two cups skin-side down with butter, brown sugar or maple syrup pooled in the hollow.
Picking a good onedrag
Cured hard, just pickedSoft-spotted, weeping
Shop firmEveryday bestThe all-rounder: roast, soup, pie, curry.
StemHard and dry, cut short
Rind under a nailNail marks it, will not pierce
SkinMatte, one pale ground patch
Smell at the stemFaintly green, clean
These cues are Pumpkin's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
70%
Edible part
952 g flesh · rind, seeds and stem out
1360 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A whole one wants a cool room, not the fridge. Below 10 C the rind pits. Chill cut wedges.
50–70%
Humidity
Open and airy
Airflow