What with Halloween and Bonfire Night you probably never want to see another pumpkin. Tough. This is comfort food time, and there are few foods more comforting than your butternut pumpkin.

To be truly satisfying, comfort food needs both flavour and texture. Pumpkin scores with the latter, but requires assistance with the former. It’s great with lashings of garlic butter, and I saw a sensational Matthew Fort recipe the other day in which he mashed it with gruyère cheese.

This one is from the US and is best avoided if you’re on any kind of pre-Christmas diet. Or better still, don’t bother with the diet.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 4 as a side dish

Prep 10mins
Cook 35mins

1 butternut pumpkin
3tbsp unsalted butter, softened
Large pinch of salt
4tbsp maple syrup
3tsp minced fresh ginger
Handful of toasted pine nuts

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180C. Peel the butternut pumpkin, cut it in half longways, remove the seeds and cut the flesh into 3cm chunks. Spread them out on a baking tray or in a roasting tin. Sprinkle with a little salt. Spoon over the butter, syrup and ginger. Roast until the tips of the squash chunks turn golden brown. Scatter the pine nuts over the top and serve with any roast meat.

More delicious pumpkin recipes:

Pasta with pumpkin and chestnuts

Pumpkin risotto

Butternut squash and ginger soup

Honey-glazed pumpkin and wedges

Roast pumpkin, goat cheese and walnuts

Spiced pumpkin cake

Sweet pumpkin pie

Tuna and pumpkin skordalia

Pumpkin seed bread

Times Recommends

• Gordon Brown’s favourite pud
• Five-spice butternut soup
• How to make popcorn and crisps