Stuffed Butternut

Stuffed Butternut

You’ll get two side dishes in one with this bright and beautiful butternut recipe. After being dusted with its favourite spice, cinnamon, the butternut is baked to become a wonderful and aromatic base for its fragrant stuffing. Seeing as it’s one of the easiest traditional South African recipes, we’ve used a yellow rice and raisin filling as a simple way to add local flair to your Christmas meal. Feel free to serve with basil leaves for extra colour.

Serves: 8

Ingredients

4 medium-sized butternuts
1 cup white or basmati rice
125 g dried saltanas
1 chopped white onion
1 tbsp. canola oil
1 tbsp. margarine
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. turmeric
Salt and pepper
½ green pepper
½ red pepper

Method

1. Cut butternut in half.
2. Remove the pips but not the skins.
3. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
4. Put a knob of margarine in each half.
5. Cover butternut with foil.
6. Place in preheated oven of 180°C and bake for about 40 minutes until soft.
7. Cook cup of rice as per packet instructions.
8. Drain rice and add sugar, turmeric, salt and saltanas.
9. In a pan, fry onions, red and green peppers.
10. Add cooked rice to pan ingredients.
11. Remove baked butternut from oven.
12. Scoop out a small amount of butternut and add to pan mixture.
13. Drizzle canola oil or olive oil over butternut.
14. Add salt and pepper according to taste.
15. Wrap each butternut in foil. Place on an outside braai for a further 10-15 minutes.
16. Fill butternut halves with rice mixture and serve.

Tips and variations:

1. Turn into a main meal by scooping out more butternut and adding bacon bits or shredded chicken to the filling.

Recipe supplied by Kanaän Produce of Promise