A good accompaniment to any roast meat or bird, or a nice snack with tea.

Ingredients

• One butternut squash (or one tin of pumpkin puree)
• 2 cups self raising flour (or plain flour plus 1 tablespoon baking powder), plus a little extra as bench flour
• 1/2 teaspoon each salt, turmeric, and paprika (plus a little extra paprika to sprinkle)
• 75 gr grated parmesan
• 125 gr grated sharp cheddar, aged kasseri, or similar cheese
• 120 gr (one US stick) butter, well chilled
• 5 leaves fresh sage (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (if using fresh sage; if using dry sage, omit the oil and use milk or cream instead)

Method

Oven temperature: 220 degrees (425 F)

1. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast face down for an hour. Measure out 250 gr (one cup); save the rest for another use. Set aside to cool
2. Cut the butter into small pieces (and preferably chill again)
3. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, turmeric, paprika (and, if using, dry sage) in a bowl
4. Add the chilled butter and cut it in. There are several ways to do this. You can pulse it quickly in a food processor. You can mix it with a batter mixing attachment in a stand mixer. You can cut it in (like you were mashing potatoes) with two forks. Finally, you can (very quickly and gingerly so as not to let the butter warm up) rub it in with your fingertips. Do this until most of the butter bits are about the size of a grain of rice and none are bigger than a pea
5. In a small frying pan, heat the oil and fresh sage leaves. Let the leaves sizzle until the bubbles have mostly subsided
6. Add the pumpkin, oil and sage (or milk or cream), 50 grams of the parmesan to the flour and mix just until combined.
7. Fold in 100 grams of the cheddar until it’s evenly distributed but not incorporated into the dough
8. With the help of a little flour sprinkled on your countertop and a little on top of the dough, flatten the dough with your hands to a more or less uniform thickness of a generous 2 cm (a little shy of an inch)
9. Cut into circles with a cookie cutter of the rim of a cup
10. Place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the tops with the remaining cheddar, then with the remaining parmesan
11. Bake for 20 minutes
12. Let cool for a few minutes, then dust with a little paprika as decoration
13. Transfer to a cooling rack or onto a wooden board to finish cooling (this helps them get nice and crispy)

Pictures

The numbers match with the steps above

1 Roast the squash

3 Mix flour with other dry ingredients

4 Add butter

4 Cut butter in

5 Fry sage

7 Mix in cheddar

9 Cut flattened dough into circles

10 Sprinkle with cheddar and parmesan

12 Decorate with a dusting of paprika