Trombocino Parmigiana

I love aubergines as much as the next person, and aubergine parmigiana is a truly delightful dish to both cook and eat, but they have proven troublesome to grow here in the wet and windy Midlands (any advice is welcome). With finding no appeal in using store-bought aubergines, I decided to use something that is always bountiful at this time of year for us, and that is squash! Trombocino to be precise, an Italian summer squash that is beautifully sweet and perfect for this kind of dish. However, any kind of squash you have growing in the garden or available at the your local greengrocers will work just as well. I also swapped out the basil typically found in a parmigiana for sage, whose more earthy and rugged flavours suit squash much more in my opinion. Brought all together with fresh tomatoes and cheese, this is truly a perfect meal for when the days begin to shorten and the temperatures drop just a little too far for comfort.

Trombocino (or any other kind of squash), roughly 1kg

Tomatoes, around 16 large ones (I used the Roma variety here)

Garlic, 4 cloves

Sage, a good handful (and some extra for crisping up as a garnish)

Mozzarella, a single ball

Parmesan

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Peel the squash, then slice length-ways around 1cm thick. Imagine them as sheets of lasagna. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and lightly season with salt and pepper, then cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

2. While the squash roasts, place the toamtoes into a pan of boiling water for literally just a minute. Remove from the pan and you’ll find them incredibly easy to peel. Empty the pan of water, then hit it with a good glug of olive oil over a medium heat. Finely slice the garlic and around 20 leaves of sage, then add to the oil. Once the garlic’s colour has deepened a few shades, add the tomatoes and turn down to a simmer. Cook until the tomatoes breaks down and thicken. Season at the end with salt and pepper.

3. Now for the assembly, and this is really where we have to work with what we've got. When I cooked this, I used a large oval oven dish roughly 25 x 15cm as you can see in the photo. However, you could use small individually portioned dishes, circular ceramic bowls, whatever you have in the kitchen really. The principles remain the same throughout. First ladle some of the sauce into the bottom of the dish - not very much, just enough to partially cover the bottom. Next, lay out the roasted trombocino slices on top of the sauce. If you find that your squash layers are becoming thick, add a little sauce in-between them so that delicious ‘tomatoeyness' can reach all of the squash. Once you have all the squash laid out, cover with the rest of the tomato sauce, add the torn up mozzarella and grate over a solid amount of parmesan.

4. Slide the assembled dish into the oven for 10 minutes, to give all the seperate ingredients a chance to meld and share, before wacking it under a medium grill to get the cheese charred. Meanwhile, heat up some olive oil over a medium heat and add the extra sage leaves. Cook these until they darken and become aromatic. Once the cheese is browned and bubbling, remove from the oven, garnish with the sage leaves and serve!