Crunchy Baked Acorn Squash with Mozzarella

A year or two ago I saw this recipe for baked squash with mozzarella in a cookbook. We looked at it in a bookstore and just loved the idea. My boyfriend took a picture of it, secretly and a bit ashamed because we had no intention to buy the book. I can't remember what the book looked like or what the name of the recipe was, but we took the inspiration from there and baked squash, topped with rosemary and mozzarella for quite a few times last winter, and I think also the one before. And it was absolutely delicious, the squash turns from hard to soft, it develops a balanced sweetness (not like pure sugar sweet) and the mozzarella melts, turns from white to golden brown and somehow changes its flavor.

Well enough, but this year I saw in the Ottolenghi cookbook Plenty, a recipe for crunchy squash with lemon. I don't remember the title of this recipe either, and I only remember the lemon bit about it. He cover the whole squash slices in a crunchy mixture that included lemon. Without looking up his recipe I decided to include the crunchy topping into the baked squash with mozzarella dish I already made. This is how this recipe was born, after thinking about it for quite some time, it came together really quickly.

Crunchy Baked Acorn Squash with Mozzarella

Ingredients:
1 acorn squash, peeled and cut into slices
1,5 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
1,5 tablespoon bread crumbs
1 tablespoon sage leaves
salt and pepper
zest of one lemonolive oil
1 mozzarella (150g)

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Throw all ingredients from pumpkin seeds to salt and pepper into a food processor and blend until you have a rather fine mixture. Add in the lemon zest and give it another short whirl. Put it in a shallow plate. Pour some olive oil into a small cup, take your slices of squash, one after the other, brush the tops with olive oil, dip them into the crunchy mixture and place them on to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Do this with all slices. I let my slices overlap a bit, buat you can also place them apart. Cut your mozzarella into slices, and place them on the squash, but not on the topping. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the squash is soft, the mozzarella golden brown but not too dark and the topping is crunchy.

Serves 2-4.