Cookbook Club – Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California

Our April Cookbook Club book was Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California by popular LA chef Travis Lett. You can see our whole recreation of the Gjelina experience on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish!

The idea of brown butter, hazelnuts, and rosemary immediately conjured up images for me of cozy times hanging with family in a house heated by excessive amounts of holiday cooking. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have that feeling right now?

I halved the squash, placed it cut-side down, covered with foil, and roasted it in a little bit of water at 425 degrees F. The recipe said to uncover after 25 minutes and continue roasting until the squash was lightly browned, though I couldn’t see how that was going to happened with the cut-sides down in water, so I flipped them over.

While the squash was roasting, I toasted the hazelnuts in a dry pan.

I melted butter, skimming the solids off until it was clear, then cooking on low until the butter turned a deep nutty brown.

I stirred in the toasted hazelnuts, brown sugar, and salt.

I added rosemary, cooked until the sugar dissolved, then slowly added vegetable stock, cooking until the pan sauce thickened. I removed from the heat and stirred in lemon juice.

I poured the sauce over the squash, seasoned with pepper, and was ready to serve!

The recipe called for cutting the squash into pieces before adding the sauce, but the picture in the cookbook showed the squash in halves. So I decided to leave the squash in halves for presentation purposes, and then cut it up when we were ready to eat. This worked ok, though the sauce didn’t end up evenly distributed, so in future I’d cut before saucing. The aroma and flavor (especially on the pieces that were well sauced) brought up exactly the warm holiday feelings I was hoping for!