Japanese simmered pumpkin
About Pumpkin
Although Halloween is over, the pumpkin season still continues. Let’s enjoy pumpkin during cold seasons in order to keep us healthy. Pumpkins are harvested from summer to early autumn. As they are long storable in general, they are often eaten in the winter as well. Freshly picked ones are not sweet, the sweetness increases with storage. Therefore the best time to eat is from autumn to winter. So here is Japanese simmered pumpkin recipe to enjoy the pumpkin for you.
Pumpkin is well known for its high content of vitamin E and β-carotene. In short : pumpkin is super healthy food. For more information about nutrition, please click below buttons.
Japanese Kabocha pumpkin
Simmered pumpkin is a common dish in Japanese home cooking. Usually Japanese simmered pumpkin is seasoned with soy sauce, sake, mirin and sugar. But this time I show you one of my favorite recipes which uses only salt and sugar for seasoning. This recipe works best for sweet, soft and flaky pumpkin. Recently I can find green coloured Kabocha pumpkin at super market. And I suppose Kabocha is widely available in Europe nowadays. “Kabocha” is pumpkin in Japanese and Kabocha pumpkin is a Japanese variety. Kabocha is the most suitable sort of pumpkin for this recipe. If you can purchase it, please use Kabocha for this recipe. But any type of pumpkin works as well.
In Western cooking, sugar is hardly used, but in Japanese cooking, often for simmered cooking (Nimono) mirin and sugar are added. They give dishes its sweetness. Japanese simmered pumpkin gives a nice accent to your meal.
Japanese simmered pumpkin
Equipment
- A pot with lid
Ingredients
- 1/4 Pumpkin Kabocha pumpkin, if you can purchase.
- 1/5 tea spoon Salt
- 4-5 table spoon Sugar
- Water
Instructions
- Remove the seeds and peel the hard part or the skin. Cut it into bite-size pieces.
- Put the pieces (skin side down) in a pan and scatter salt and sugar over it and leave it for an hour or until some moisture comes out.
- Add water from the bottom of the pot up to 1cm. Place a lid on the pot and bring it to boiling over medium high heat. Once it starts boiling, turn down the heat to low and cook 10-15 minutes further. Check with skewers or fork if the pumpkin is soft. If not tender enough, cook further 5-10 minutes.
- Take lid out and if there are a lot of liquid, turn up the heat and boil and let the liquid evaporate until some syrupy liquid is left.
This is very easy and simple recipe. You taste pumpkin directly as minimum seasoning has been added. Hope you will try this recipe and cook it repeatedly.
If you like to make a Japanese side dish, please click the link below for Japanese potato salad.
Bon Apetit !!