Chayote Crumble Tart

The other day I was looking up on squash (chayote) recipes when I came across a few recipes of pies! To say I was amazed is just putting it mildly. The vegetable that grows with such abundance in our region, and is fried and curried so often has never been looked at as a baking option. So when I saw it I had to try it out for myself. And if someone had mentioned that squash was good for pies before I saw the posts, I wouldn’t have believed it! But then again, if you think about the texture, it is the same as a pear. True to its other name of pear squash or vegetable pear. It’s also known as chowchow, choko, chocho. The list goes on.

I had some left-over pastry dough from my last baking session. So I rolled out and lined three small tart tins. There wasn’t enough dough for double crust pie with lattice or other designs. So I settled for a crumble tart.

One tender squash was picked from the vine, peeled and chopped into small pieces. This was boiled in very little water till almost done. The vegetable still had a bite to it after I removed it from the stove. While it was cooling down, I blind-baked the tart shells.

To the cooked squash pieces, I added

1 teaspoon of sugar

 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour

About a handful of raisins

The above ingredients were mixed and transferred to the cooled tart cases.

For the crumble topping I used

half a cup of all-purpose flour

50 grams of cold butter cut into small cubes

1 tablespoon of sugar

i rubbed the butter into the flour till the mixture was crumbly. This then went on top of the three tart cases with the squash filling. I added a few chopped almonds as well. The filling was just right for these small tins. These were then baked at 180 C for 25 minutes.

Although it got a little too brown, the taste was just right. It felt like biting into a filling made of sweet fruit. Certainly not the vegetable squash that I have always known. And this is something I’d like to bake again, properly. With enough dough for some designs on the upper crust of a pie.

This takes me back to the time when I found out that green unripe tomatoes could be used in cakes. Or nasturtium leaves could be used in a pesto. Googling and learning is such fun!