RCP: Brown Butter Pasta W/ Butternut Squash, Walnuts & Sage

Just had this tonight for the first time. Everything went together beautifully. I've also seen similar recipes with included sautéed pancetta or prosciutto. I'll try diced pancetta next time.

The original is at https://food52.com/recipes/86745-brown-butter-pasta-with-butternut-squash-walnuts-sage and is double this recipe (and I modifed it slightly):

Brown Butter Pasta With Butternut Squash, Walnuts & Sage

1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
½ lb butternut squash, halved lengthwise, peeled and sliced into ¼-inch-thick half moons
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
⅛ to ¼ tsp cayenne, depending on your penchant for spice
Kosher salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 oz linguine pasta
4 Tbsp salted butter
½ cup walnuts, toasted until golden and coarsely chopped
16 to 20 stems fresh sage, leaves plucked from stems

Heat a large fry pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the olive oil and lower the heat to medium. Sauté the squash slices in batches, sprinkling about one-quarter of the nutmeg and cayenne and seasoning with salt and pepper. Cook for 3 minutes on the first side, tilting the pan to coat the squash slices in oil, then flip and sprinkle again with the nutmeg and cayenne. Sauté for 3 more minutes or until the squash slices are translucent and caramelized in parts. Transfer to a dish and set aside. Repeat with the remaining squash. Once all slices are cooked, transfer to the same dish.

Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil and cook pasta al dente according to package instructions.

While the pasta cooks, melt butter in the pan used to cook the squash. After foaming subsides, swirl occasionally for 5 to 7 minutes or until the butter produces a nutty aroma and deepens to a toasty brown. Add the walnuts and swirl to coat. Add the sage leaves and toss to coat. When the pasta is cooked, use tongs to transfer the noodles to the brown butter mixture and toss to thoroughly coat. Turn the heat off. Add the squash back to the pan and toss together to combine with the pasta.

Divide the pasta evenly into 2 bowls, season with freshly ground black pepper and serve. 

That sounds really good Ted. Flavours that work really well together and I love the crunch of walnuts.
A few extra sage leaves deep fried til crispy to garnish would be nice, but then I’m craving sage at the moment because I haven’t been able to replace my sage bush that died.

[Jenise]

Ted, funny you suggest this. In the past few days I had reason to consider the fact that for some reason I've not been buying/using butternut squash and should get back to that. A separate thought when given a leaf or two of fried sage in a restaurant pasta dish that I should use some of my own--or at least pick some and bring it in for use over the next month or so, before winter freezes take my supply away. This dish would be the perfect answer to both. I love everything about sage and brown butter as a sauce for plain pasta as well as butternut squash ravioli, so why not just add the squash part nekkid? I'll do it.

A separate thought when given a leaf or two of fried sage in a restaurant pasta dish that I should use some of my own--or at least pick some and bring it in for use over the next month or so, before winter freezes take my supply away.

Jenise, I think we have more severe winters than you do, thanks to a continental climate (even though we're farther south!), and I find that my sage, in an unheated greenhouse, stays usable pretty much all through the winter. You might try protecting your sage somehow.

[Jenise]

..or building a greenhouse, which would be hard to do as I don't have a yard per se. I have southfacing beach (takes all the storms) in back and in front, a courtyard which is mostly ornamental and where I would not be allowed to build a structure. The sage is potted and lives in the courtyard.

But hey, we had this dish last night for dinner. Loved it! Really liked the inclusion of nutmeg, which I wouldn't have thought to use.

Two points, though, about preparation of the squash. One, rather than follow the instructions for half moons, my squash was too large for that. So I cut the squash into triangles a bit thicker, more like 3/8", so that I had some flat surfaces but in manageable bites that would look good with the paparadelle I was using for the pasta element. Also, the cooking instructions--no need to use that much oil or cook in batches. Just toss with a bit of olive oil and lay out on a nonstick cookie sheet. About ten minutes at 425F and you have perfectly cooked squash that won't absorb nearly as much oil as the method suggested here would.