Roasted butternut squash with tahini and red onion

One of my most-used cookbooks is Ottolenghi's Jerusalem and this is one of my favourite recipes from it. Whilst many of the Israeli chef's dishes require hours of prep and whole pantries of ingredients, this one's pretty simple to make - but the flavours are delicious. 

I've tweaked the recipe because I'm not a big fan of za'atar, so added a dash of balsamic vinegar for some replacement zing. The original, for comparison, is here.

Ingredients (serves four)

1 large butternut squash, cut into wedges the size of apple slices
2 red onions, cut into eighths
two tablespoons olive oil 
3½ tbsp tahini paste 
1½ tbsp lemon juice 
3 tbsp water 
1 small garlic clove, crushed 
30g pine nuts 
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp roughly chopped parsley
1 tsp sumac

Method

Heat the oven to 200C, and lay out the squash and onions on a tray.
Drizzle the olive oil, plus a few twists of salt and black pepper, on top, and toss well. 
Roast for 40 minutes, adding the pine nuts for the last few minutes to brown
In the meantime, mix the tahini, lemon juice, water, garlic and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Mix, Ottolenghi advises, to the consistency of honey, adding more water or tahini as necessary.
Dish up the veg, then drizzle over the sauce, and the balsamic vinegar. Scatter the pine nuts on top, followed by the parsley and a sprinkle of sumac for colour.