Spaghetti squash always fascinated me as a child. It has yellow flesh that, once cooked, falls away in strands resembling spaghetti and, with a little butter and salt, tastes delicious. It was a great way for my mother to introduce me to vegetables.
In Spain they eat a lot of squash in various forms, even in sweets such as cabello d’angel (literally translated as ‘angel’s hair’) where the strands are cooked down with sugar and cinnamon to make a transparent jam. This recipe echoes this tradition, with the squash cooked slowly in the ashes, concentrating the flavours and caramelising the natural sugars. The strands are then lightly candied before being combined with kataifi, a shredded filo dough used to make many traditional Lebanese sweets. The kataifimirrors the strands of the squash while providing a crisp exterior. The pickled rose petals provide a fragrant acidity against the sweet pastry.