Recipes with pumpkin

Squash is not one vegetable but a whole family, which is why it turns up everywhere: it grows fast, keeps all winter without asking for anything, and its sweet flesh will just as happily hold its shape in a stew, collapse into a purée or go into a fritter. A summer squash like courgette gives up water; a hard-skinned winter squash gives up sugar.

Two schools pull in opposite directions. Those that let it melt until it thickens the dish: Brazilian quibebe reduces it to a cream, Argentinian locro and Chilean porotos granados use it to bind a stew of corn and beans, and Australian pumpkin soup is built from little else. And those that keep it in recognisable pieces: Guadeloupean squash colombo and Filipino ginataang kalabasa cook it in a spiced sauce or coconut milk and stop before it falls apart. Frying stands on its own: South African pampoenkoekies and Chilean sopaipillas fold it into a batter.

The move that changes the result: roast the pieces rather than boil them. Water dilutes the sugar and leaves a bland, loose purée; dry heat concentrates it. If a recipe wants a purée, build it from roasted flesh that has cooled, not from boiled.