Kabocha

Courge kabocha

What it is

The name is the country: Portuguese ships brought the squash to Kyushu in the sixteenth century by way of Cambodia, and Camboja became kabocha. Japan eats it at the winter solstice from fruit picked in late summer and cured for months, because the starch turns to sugar in storage and a kabocha eaten straight off the field is the dull version.

In the kitchen

Leave the skin on, cut large chunks with the edges bevelled off, then simmer in dashi, sugar and soy with the cut faces up and barely covered: twenty minutes, no stirring. Its dryness is the point — it will not thicken a soup the way butternut does, so it wants liquid around it rather than to become one.

Goes with

Kombu Soy sauce Hon-mirin Butter Katsuobushi (dried bonito) Ginger

Same species

Butternut squash Courgette flower Muscade de Provence squash Pattypan squash Red kuri squash Pumpkin

Also used with

Black sesame

In season alongside

Borlotti bean Brussels sprout Cauliflower Earth chestnut Jerusalem artichoke Pardailhan black turnip

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