Cheese-Pushing B&T Cute-y Boo
My local farm market is looking, well, wintery. The brilliant colors of summer - radiantly red tomatoes and light green basil - are no where to be found. Instead there’s a lot of dark green (kale, chard) and orange (squash and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes). This week I bought a pumpkin I’d never seen before. It was called Cheese. When I got home I looked it up on the interwebby and found that the full name is Long Island Cheese Pumpkin.
Long Island Cheese Pumpkin!?!?! That sounds like it should be an Urban Dictionary submission. As in: A bridge and tunnel cute-y boo who sells drugs to Wall St. types after the market closes.I even looked it up on the website, sadly to no findings, except of course for these findings: Long IslandCheesePumpkin. (If you only take one thing away from this post - make it the link for Cheese back there.)I also found some real facts.This variety of squash is more closely related to a butternut than a pumpkin and has been cultivated on Long Island since the 1800’s. Sometime in the 1960’s they started to disappear. Maybe they fell out of favor or maybe there was a blight that took the crop out. In any case, it’s taken a long time to come back, but thank goodness it did. In addition to being irresistibly cute (it’s shaped like a ridged, flattened wheel of cheese) it is much richer in flavor and color than the run-of-the-mill pumpkin. It’s squashier than butternut, too. This farmer uses The Cheese in pies and sells out. I can understand why.I wasn’t in the mood for pie, so instead decided to make pumpkin dumplings. These are very similar to gnocchi, but I can’t call them that because this dough is dropped into boiling water instead of being rolled and cut first.And with my dumplings, I made a sauce - in quotes - of locally made kielbasa and Swiss Chard. It’s in quotes because it’s not really all that saucy. This is a great cold-night dish. It feels healthy, but also a little piggy (read: delicious), and is a fun way to explore new (to me at least) type of winter squash.
Long Island Cheese Pumpkin Dumplings with Swiss Chard and Kielbasa
Serves 4 as a first course or 2 as a main1 small Cheese Pumpkin2 tablespoon olive oilfine sea salt1/2 lb kielbasa1 small red onion, sliced1 large bunch Swiss chardfreshly ground black pepper1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese2 large egg yolks1 teaspoon dried sage1/2 cup all-purpose flourPreheat oven to 400°F.Cut pumpkin in half and remove seeds with a spoon. Place a piece of foil on a baking sheet. Rub cut sides of pumpkin with 1 tablespoon oil then sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Place pumpkin, cut sides down on baking sheet and roast until tender, about 40 minutes. Let cool.Separate chard leaves and stems. Cut stems into 1/4-inch pieces and tear leaves into large pieces.Cut kielbasa into 1/2-inch slices. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large heavy skillet over medium high heat, then brown sausage, turning, about 6 minutes total. Transfer sausage to a plate, reserving fat in skillet.Add onion and chard stems to skillet and cook, stirring, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes. Add leaves and cook, turning with tongs, until wilted, 3 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and reserve.Scoop 1 cup of pumpkin into a bowl. Stir in cheese, yolks, sage, flour, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. (Batter will be sticky.)Bring a pot of boiling salted water to a boil. Drop teaspoon-sized pieces of batter into boiling water. Boil dumplings until they float, about 3 minutes. Transfer dumplings to Swiss chard mixture and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then serve.