Vegan Mofo #28 - Mark’s Roasted Squash With Truffle Cream Sauce...

Vegan Mofo #28 - Mark’s Roasted Squash With Truffle Cream Sauce

The Region - France
The Book - The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe
The Author - Mark Reinfeld
The Recipe - Roasted Squash With Truffle Cream Sauce
Page # 74
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 35 minutes

Today we move from India Back to Europe with a French inspired recipe out of The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe. Personally I’m not sure how French this recipe is and Mark doesn’t really go into detail about why it’s in the French section, but I can surmise it has something to do with the truffles and the cream sauce.  After all truffles are big business in France, and the French are particularly known for making great cream sauces.

I typically never make cream sauces myself, not because I don’t like them but because the mood never particularly strikes me. I do however love squash and so I thought this would be an interesting dish, and seeing as how I already had the truffle oil called for - oil is more pocketbook friendly then actual truffles - I thought why not give it a shot?

The dish is easy enough to prepare. You dice up some butternut squash - though in my cause I used Delicata because that’s what I had - then you toss it with olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and tarragon. Then you roast it. While it roasts you make some caramelized onions with a bit of red wine vinegar, sugar and some of the prized truffle oil. Then you make your cream sauce which is made from a mixture of cashews, non-dairy milk, truffle oil, salt, white pepper, and more tarragon. When everything’s ready you plate your squash drizzle over some cream sauce and top with the deliciously caramelized onions. Voila, you have a très sophistiqué side dish

As for the flavor - well, how can you go wrong with roasted squash, especially as we transition into fall, am I right? Caramelized onions are always divine and the cream sauce was good too, it came out very thick which I liked. My only complaint about it is that I didn’t think the truffle taste was very prominent, he only suggests using a 1/4 tsp as the stuff is very strong but I didn’t think that was enough. I upped it to a ½ tsp and still think it could have used more. Perhaps that’s just me, but next time I would make this with a bit more white pepper, a touch of garlic and perhaps a full tsp of the truffle oil. Though, if you’ve never used truffle oil before I really suggest - as does Reinfeld - that you air on the side of caution. Too much and your dish will be irrevocably destroyed.