Seasonal Eating: What to Cook in Early Autumn

Early autumn is the most generous fortnight in the British kitchen. For a few brief weeks, the last of the tomatoes are still ripening on the windowsill while the first squash come in from the plot, and the hedgerows are heavy with damsons. It is a season of overlap, and the cooking that suits it best is the kind that bridges the two: warming enough for a cool evening, bright enough to honour the summer that has just gone.

What Is at Its Best Right Now

If you shop or grow seasonally, the early autumn larder is unusually rich. This is the moment to make the most of the following, all of which are at peak quality between early September and late October.

• Squash and pumpkins — butternut, Crown Prince, Harlequin and the smaller acorn types, all at their sweetest now.
• Apples — eaters such as Egremont Russet and Discovery, cookers such as Bramley, and the first of the long-keeping varieties.
• Damsons — intensely sharp, deeply coloured, and a fleeting crop worth clearing the freezer for.
• Late tomatoes — outdoor varieties finishing up, plus a glut of green fruit that will never ripen.
• Supporting cast — sweetcorn, cavolo nero, beetroot, figs, cobnuts and the first wild mushrooms.

If you grow your own squash, cure them properly: ten to fourteen days somewhere warm and dry, then store in a cool, dark room. A well-cured Crown Prince will still be feeding you in February.

Squash: Roast It Hot, Then Take It Further

The single most useful thing you can do with a squash is roast it hard. Cut it into thick wedges, leave the skin on, toss with olive oil, salt and a few sage leaves, and roast at 200°C (180°C fan) for 30–40 minutes until the edges caramelise. That alone is dinner with a bowl of butter beans and some bread.

To turn it into something more interesting, try these three routes:

• Brown butter and sage. Melt 60g of butter until it smells nutty and the milk solids turn golden, then pour it over roasted squash with crisp fried sage and a squeeze of lemon.
• Chilli, garlic and yoghurt. Mash roasted squash roughly, fold through a spoonful of Greek yoghurt, and top with garlic sizzled in olive oil with a pinch of chilli flakes.
• Soup with apple. Simmer roasted squash with a chopped Bramley and a litre of stock. The apple adds the acidity that squash alone lacks. Blitz, then finish with cream or a swirl of crème fraîche.

Freeze any surplus purée in 500g portions. It thaws into risotto, pasta sauce and soup all winter.

Apples and Damsons: Sweet, Sharp and Preserving Well

Apples are the backbone of autumn cooking because they bring both sweetness and acidity. Keep your cookers and eaters separate: Bramleys collapse into sauce and crumble fillings, while a russet holds its shape and is better sliced into a tart or eaten with cheese.

Damsons are the more urgent crop. They are far too sharp to eat raw and they set beautifully because they are high in pectin — which is why they make such good jam, cheese and ketchup. A damson ketchup, spiced with ginger and a little clove, is far better than it sounds alongside roast pork or cold meats.

For a crumble that bridges the seasons, combine 500g of halved damsons with two peeled, sliced Bramleys and 100g of sugar. Top with 100g plain flour, 50g oats, 60g cold butter rubbed in, and 50g demerara. Bake at 190°C (170°C fan) for 35–40 minutes. A single star anise in the fruit is worth trying once — if you like it, you will keep doing it.

And do put a bottle of damson gin on before the season ends. Fill a jar with pricked fruit, cover with gin and add sugar to taste. Shake weekly for three months and strain.

Late Tomatoes: Stretch Them Out

Never refrigerate a tomato; the cold kills the aroma compounds for good. Keep them at room temperature, stem-side down, and use the ripest first. When the plants finally give up, there are two excellent options.

First, slow-roasting. Halve the tomatoes, lay them cut-side up on a tray with sliced garlic, thyme and a generous glug of olive oil, then cook at 130°C for two to three hours. They intensify rather than dry out, and they keep in oil in the fridge for a fortnight.

Second, green tomato chutney for the fruit that will never ripen. Roughly: 1kg green tomatoes, 500g onions, 250g cooking apples, 300g soft brown sugar, 300ml cider vinegar, plus mustard seed, ginger and a pinch of chilli. Simmer for an hour or more until thick and glossy, then pot into sterilised jars. It wants three months in the cupboard before it is at its best — which is precisely the point.

Jobs in the Kitchen Garden

Autumn is a planting season as much as a harvesting one, and getting ahead now pays off in spring.

• Sow broad beans in October for an earlier crop next year; Aquadulce Claudia is the reliable choice.
• Plant garlic from October to November, in well-drained ground, for bigger bulbs than spring planting gives.
• Clear tomato and courgette beds, but leave healthy roots in the soil and compost only disease-free material.
• Sow green manure such as field beans or phacelia on bare ground rather than leaving it exposed to winter rain.
• Gather leaves for leaf mould. A wire bin of damp leaves left for a year becomes the best soil conditioner you can make.

Cooking That Spans the Seasons

The trick with early autumn is not to choose between summer and winter food, but to let them sit on the same plate. A traybake of roasted squash with halved late tomatoes, garlic, rosemary and a tin of butter beans, finished with a handful of chopped parsley, does exactly that. So does a bowl of slow-cooked beans topped with a spoonful of fresh tomato passata and a drizzle of good oil.

Cook generously now and put some by: roasted squash purée, tomato sauce, chutney, crumble topping frozen in bags. By January, when the shops are full of flown-in imports, you will be eating your own September, and it will taste far better than anything you could buy.