Butternut squash
Butternutpumpa
99°C
Cook to this all the way through
99 °C. Fork-tender is not done yet.
On the grill
Halve it lengthways, scoop out the seeds, oil the cut faces and lay it cut-side down beside the coals until it takes colour, then turn it over and let it finish on its skin. Probe the thick part of the neck rather than the bulb. The neck is solid flesh and the last part of it to give.
Fork-tender is the metric that gets this vegetable wrong. At 88 °C it yields to a knife and is still stringy; the pectin does not break down completely until 99 °C, which is where it turns creamy and the starch has finished turning to sugar. At 79 °C it is barely cooked at all, however soft the outside feels.