Pie, Ayote (Winter Squash)

By fireandfrost

For those of you new to Managua who can’t find canned pumpkin for your pumpkin pie—think ahead (as I am) and use ayote (winter squash) which you can get at La Colonia or any market in town. This makes a delicious pumpkin pie, which my children actually prefer to pie made from canned pumpkin: here’s how:

•Buy about 6 big chunks of cut up ayote at the store—look for chunks that have a hard yellow skin and thick meaty insides.
•Ask your maid to take off the skin, scrape out the seeds and cut into 2” chunks. (really, I would NOT do this myself as I have had the worst luck with sharp kitchen utensils lately. I would end up “nine-finger-mo” )
•Put the skinned/seeded and cut-up pumpkin on a baking sheet, cover with tinfoil and bake until tender at about 350 degrees. This will take an hour more or less.
•Put the pulp in a food processor (or mash by hand if you don’t have a food processor),and process until smooth.
•Scrape the smooth paste into a plastic sieve and let this sit over a bowl… let the pumpkin sit like this a few hours or overnight (in the fridge).
Use the resulting ayote pulp as you would canned pumpkin in any recipe. It is important to let this sit a few hours to drain out excess liquid

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 ½ cups squash purée
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1 tsp. Fresh grated ginger (use a microplane grater)
• ¼ tsp. Cloves
• 1 2/3 cups whole milk
• 1 9” unbaked pie shell

Preparation

Step 1

Mix ingredients in order given (up to pie shell) in a blender. Pour into pie shell, bake at

425 for 15 minutes, lower heat to 350, continue baking another 45 minutes or until knife

inserted in center comes out clean.