9 spices to pair with squash

Autumn is the season of gourds, with their rich colours and comforting flavours invading our kitchens. While squash can be delicious on their own, the addition of carefully selected spices can transform these vegetables into veritable feasts for the taste buds. Here’s our advice on how to combine them with our spices direct from our Kampot Farm in southern Cambodia!

Galangal, a spice related to ginger, adds an exotic, fragrant touch to your squash-based dishes. Its unique aroma is slightly spicy with floral and lemony notes. Mix Galangal Powder with olive oil to create a delicious marinade for your pieces of squash. This spice adds an incomparable depth of flavour to squash dishes and is particularly tasty in soups and stir-fries.

Lemongrass is an aromatic spice that adds a lemony freshness to your squash dishes. Stir a nice teaspoon of Lemongrass Stem Powder into a soy and sesame oil-based marinade for an Asian flavour profile before roasting in the oven, or sautéing. Lemongrass also works well in squash soups, adding a zesty note that perfectly balances the natural sweetness of the squash.

Turmeric, with its vibrant golden colour, is a must-have spice for squash dishes. It brings brightness to your creations while offering health benefits. Mix Turmeric Flower powder with olive oil to coat your squash pieces before cooking. Not only does this intensify the colour of your dish, but it also adds an earthy flavour that goes wonderfully with the sweetness of the squash. Our Tip: Don’t forget to add plenty of pepper when using turmeric, to make sure you absorb the active ingredient, curcumin!

For those who enjoy the flavour but prefer to avoid the strong heat of cayenne pepper, Sweet Long Pepper, aka our paprika is a perfect choice to liven up your squash dishes. Available in different varieties, Plain or Smoked, Sweet Long Pepper adds vibrant colour and a slightly sweet flavour to your squash-based recipes. The smoked version goes perfectly with squash roasted on the barbecue, or in the oven to intensify the smoky flavour. Sprinkle on slices of squash before roasting in the oven for a subtle touch of heat!

Cardamom, with its minty and slightly smoky aroma, can add a very surprising exotic touch to your squash dishes. Try adding it to a squash soup with coconut milk for a rich, complex flavour. Select our Forest Cardamom, or our Wild Cardamom. The latter has a light shell that you can open. Crush the cardamom and add directly to the squash when cooking, or grind just before serving to suit your guests!

Ginger, whether young or wild, is ideal for adding a little zing to squash dishes, especially soups and squash purées. This intensely aromatic spice is also full of benefits, to keep us healthy all winter long. Combined with a touch of honey, it creates an exquisite sweet-spicy harmony, a delight with roasted goat’s cheese or Camembert!

This lesser-known spice is nonetheless emblematic of South-East Asia. Also known as Star Anise, star anise goes well with both sweet and savoury dishes, especially Indian curries such as dahl, made with lentils and pumpkin. A truly fresh, aniseed note that adds a little lightness to comforting dishes.

Full of deliciousness, our Cassia Cinnamon goes particularly well with squash, especially for sweet dishes, found in many American recipes for Autumn and the famous ‘Thanksgiving’. Pumpkin pie is simply a pie made with pumpkin and spices, including cinnamon. In fact, it’s the Cassia Cinnamon variety rather than the Ceylon variety that’s most popular in the United States, with its unique flavour that reminds us of the arrival of Autumn. Don’t be afraid to use cinnamon in a sweet version of squash!
In a savoury version, it will add a touch of roundness to your butternut soup.

You’ve probably wondered what to do with all those squash seeds we pick up during recipes. Our anti-waste tip is to roast them in the oven, with a little olive oil and Rub Cacao. All you have to do is remove the membranes and keep only the seeds, then dry them between two sheets of paper towel. Then they’re ready to go into the oven for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees. You can hear them swell up like popcorn, and after a few seconds, that’s the signal that the seeds are ready to be eaten!

In conclusion, squash is the perfect backdrop for experimenting with a variety of exotic spices. Whether you prefer Galanga, Turmeric, Paprika, Cardamom, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cocoa Rub or why not a mix to suit your taste, each spice adds a little something extra to your Autumn recipes. So now’s your chance to experiment in the kitchen this season!