Courge farcie: France's whole roasted stuffed squash

Courge farcie - a whole squash hollowed out, packed with its own stuffing and baked until the shell goes soft enough to eat - is the dish French home cooks reach for the moment the market stalls fill with winter squash. The technique is older than any one recipe: use the vegetable as its own cooking pot, so nothing extra goes in the oven and nothing gets thrown away.

Potimarron, the small, chestnut-flavoured red kuri squash sold across French markets from October, is the classic choice because its skin softens enough to eat along with the flesh. Butternut or a small pumpkin works too, though the skin on those is usually left on the plate.

The filling is built around chair à saucisse - loose pork sausage meat - bulked with mushrooms and soaked bread so it stays moist through a long, gentle bake inside a sealed shell. It is a one-dish main built for a cold Sunday, not a technical exercise.

Use the squash as its own pot: nothing extra goes in the oven, and nothing gets thrown away.

Ingredients

• 1 round squash (potimarron or small pumpkin), about 1.5 kg
• 300 g pork sausage meat, casings removed
• 200 g chestnut mushrooms, chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 80 g stale bread, torn into small pieces
• 100 ml whole milk
• 100 ml crème fraîche
• 30 g grated Comté or Gruyère, plus extra to finish
• 1 tbsp chopped thyme, plus extra leaves
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C. Slice the top off the squash to make a lid and scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp with a spoon, leaving the walls thick enough to hold their shape through the bake.
2. Tear the bread into a bowl and pour over the milk. Let it sit for five minutes - soaked bread keeps the filling moist over the long, sealed bake, where a dry breadcrumb would just turn to crumbs.
3. Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes until soft, then add the garlic and mushrooms and cook for another 6-8 minutes, until the mushroom liquid has evaporated. Cooking it off now stops the stuffing turning watery once it goes into the squash.
4. Off the heat, mix the sausage meat, mushroom mixture, soaked bread, thyme and half the cheese in a bowl. Season well - squash flesh is mild, so the filling needs to carry most of the flavour.
5. Pack the stuffing into the squash, mounding it slightly, and set the lid back on. Bake for 70-80 minutes, until a knife slides easily into the flesh through the side.
6. Remove the lid for the final 15 minutes, spoon the crème fraîche over the stuffing and scatter the remaining cheese on top, so it browns while the squash finishes cooking through.
7. Rest for 10 minutes before bringing it to the table whole. Carve it into wedges, scooping some of the softened shell in with each portion - that's the part of the dish not to waste.

What to drink with it, and a meat-free version

A light, chillable red carries this better than anything heavy: a Beaujolais or a young Gamay has enough acidity to cut through the cream and sausage fat without fighting the squash's sweetness.

For a vegetarian version, swap the sausage meat for 250 g cooked brown lentils and a handful of chopped cooked chestnuts, and use an extra egg to bind the filling. The bake time and temperature stay the same. For more of the season's produce in a single bowl, see our pumpkin and chestnut velouté.

Can it be made ahead? Yes - stuff the raw squash up to a day ahead, keep it covered in the fridge, and bake straight from cold, adding 10-15 minutes to the time.