Sunday, January 31, 2010

Kobocha!

Until now, Delicatta Squash has been the favorite in our household. Tonight we made steak and baked potatoes for dinner--nothing crazy--and Sean pulls out the last Delicatta squash from my folks' garden. He wanted that too. Then, in the same basket, I see the Kobocha I picked up about a month ago at my favorite Asian market, Uwajimaya. At the time, I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I just knew I had to find out!

First--a little "what is it" lesson. Supposedly it's been around since about the 19th century, but has only recently made it to US markets. It's considered a Japanese pumpkin, and is loaded with Vitamin C and A, and lots of fiber too, especially if you eat the thin skin which softens when cooked. The one I bought weighed about three pounds, and is about the size of a large cooking pumpkin. Though it's green outside, the flesh is pretty orange, very similar to our standard American pumpkin. It's apparently available from late fall to early spring.

Anyway, Sean scoffed at me making it, but I found a quick seemingly delicious recipe on someone else's blog. A simple sliced squash tossed with brown sugar, cumin, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, soy sauce and olive oil.

http://www.justhungry.com/sweet-and-spicy-roasted-kabocha-squash

I was going to take a picture of it, but we wound up eating it too fast. It candies up beautifully. We weren't sure about eating the skin at first, but it ended up being the best part--kind of chewy and REALLY delicious. I roasted the other half for the twins and mixed it will cinnamon and a little roasted banana. They liked it too!

Long story short--GOOD GRIEF, it was GOOD! I hope you get around to trying it some day, too. Sean still says Delicatta is his favorite, but he sure didn't have a problem fighting me for the last morsel of this one.

(For the record, I'm trying the following recipe the next time I buy one, which will probably be real soon.)

http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-is-kabocha-squash.html

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