Recipe
Farro salad with roasted pumpkin, borlotti, and sage
There is a thing that happens at Italian markets in October which does not happen anywhere else, and it is that pumpkin is sold in wedges.
Not whole. Not in a net. One enormous specimen sits open on the stall like a geological sample, and the man behind it takes a knife the length of your forearm and cuts you exactly as much as you want. Four hundred grams. A kilo. Whatever you feel like carrying home. It is the single most sensible piece of retail anywhere in Europe, and its absence from the average supermarket, where pumpkin comes whole or not at all, goes a long way towards explaining why so many people living alone have never once cooked one.
If your shop only sells them whole, buy the smallest you can find, roast all of it in one go, and spend the rest of the week using it. Roasted pumpkin keeps four days and gets better. If your shop sells butternut squash in halves, that works identically and nobody in this book is going to tell on you.
What roasting does to pumpkin is the entire reason this salad exists. Boiled, it goes watery and faintly sad. Roasted hard at 220 degrees until the edges have caught and gone almost black in places, it turns sweet and dense and slightly smoky, and those caught edges are exactly what keeps it interesting three days later in a cold box on a desk.
Farro underneath, because it is the one grain that holds its chew overnight instead of surrendering into paste. Borlotti beans for the protein and because their earthiness sits well against all that sweetness. Sage leaves fried crisp in olive oil, which takes forty seconds and is the difference between a nice lunch and one you start thinking about at 11:00.
Dress it while the grain is still warm. Cold grains absorb nothing.
- Prep 15 min
- Cook 35 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Heat the oven to 220°C fan. Toss the pumpkin with 2 tbsp of the oil and plenty of salt, spread it in one layer with space between the cubes, and roast until the edges are dark and caramelised.
30 min
- 2
Meanwhile cook the farro in well-salted water until tender with a chew still in it. Drain and tip into a wide bowl.
25 min
- 3
Fry the sage leaves in 2 tbsp of the oil over medium heat for about 40 seconds, until they stop bubbling and go stiff. Lift onto paper. Keep the sage-flavoured oil.
2 min
- 4
Whisk the sage oil with the remaining olive oil, the vinegar, the garlic, salt and pepper. Pour it over the warm farro and stir so it drinks it in.
2 min
- 5
Fold through the beans and the roasted pumpkin, keeping the cubes reasonably intact.
2 min
- 6
Add the rocket and the crumbled sage leaves only at the moment of eating, never before.
1 min
Variations
Pearl barley or pearl spelt work identically and often cost less. Crumbled feta or shaved pecorino is excellent here and loses the vegan flag. Toasted hazelnuts add crunch and lose the nut-free flag. Chickpeas or lentils in place of the borlotti. In spring, swap the pumpkin for roasted carrots and the sage for mint. Keeps 3 days dressed, and honestly peaks on day two.