Squash & turnip crumble

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has an excellent kitchen with AGA oven, huge fireplace and obviously lovely wooden dining table. I have a big wooden dinning table myself but I am little bit jealous of his kitchen. And his lifestyle. I wish I could have this nice upper class country lifestyle, have lots of time to maintain my own veg garden, fruit trees and go fishing. Unfortunately I have to work 8 hours a day, I don’t have my own cottage or even a greenhouse. So one thing that I can do similar to Hugh is cooking lovely stuff inspired by his recipes. At least the jealousy can mobilise to make good things sometimes…

When I first time saw root veg crumble on his TV show I could not stop thinking about it. I thought that I make my own inspired by his recipe. Squash was quite natural choice because it is in season now. So I made the most beautiful crumble I ever had, and because roasted veg are quite sweet I cannot tell that it was 100% savoury. Very interesting! You have to try it.

Serves 2

half medium butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into bite size chunks
medium turnip, peeled and cut into bite size chunks
large carrot, peeled and cut in four lengthwise and then into about inch pieces
medium onion, peeled, halved and sliced
garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
half tsp honey
half tsp wholegrain mustard
few springs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
salt (I used
sea salt with lemon peel and thyme)
freshly ground black pepper

For the topping

piece of stale bread (I used piece of ciabatta about one bread roll size), roughly diced
50g walnuts
handful of oats (I used Scottish porridge oats)
tbsp freshly grated parmesan


Heat the oven to 180 C.

Mix the olive, garlic, honey, thyme and mustard together.

In an ovenproof dish arrange all vegetables and pour the olive mixture over them. Season with salt and pepper, mix well with a spoon, cover with piece of tin foil and place in the oven, for about 20 minutes.

Process the bread and walnuts in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Mix with the oats and parmesan.

Uncover the vegetables and increase the temperature to 200 C. Roast for about 8-10 minutes, then cover with topping and roast until golden and crispy.

Perfect on its own, but also I am going to serve it with roast lamb in the future.