Kabocha Nimono

This pumpkin side dish is another Japanese recipe, which I don’t see around much. It is an autumn/winter dish, one of the many small side dishes typical of Japanese home cooking. It also uses the typical flavour combination of dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sake which can be found throughout Japanese cooking.

Tags: Sides; Appetiser; Japanese

Edd Azzopardi @Eddandwaffle

Tags: Sides; Appetiser; Japanese

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Ingredients

Prep 15min Cooking 40min

4 people

750 gKabocha Pumpkin (or a Sweet pumpkin or squash)
500 mlDashi (Japanese stock)
Dashi Stock
2 tbspSugar
2 tbspmirn
2 tbspsoya sauce
1 tbspsake

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Steps

Prep 15min Cooking 40min

1

Remove seeds and fibres of the Kabocha the cut the kabocha into wedges, about 4-5cm in size.
2

Partially remove the skin of the kabocha, be careful not to remove all the skin otherwise the kabocha will fall apart when cooked.
3

Place the kabocha into a pan and add the dashi. Bring the dashi to the boil over a high heat, once boiling reduce the heat to low and simmer until the kabocha is tender. (20 minute to 30 minutes)
4

Once tender add the sugar, mirin and soy sauce and cook for a further 10 minutes.
5

Remove the kabocha from the dashi and let it cool slightly before serving.

Tips

Dashi Stock

If you are wanting to master the arts of Japanese cooking then learning about dashi is a good start. Dashi is the Japanese word for stock, although, as I am reliably informed, the literal translation means ‘what is left’. Its one of the main three ingredients that make up the base of many Japanese dishes, and if you look carefully most Japanese recipes will have a combination of dashi (savoury), Mirin (sweet) and soya sauce, or shoyu in Japanese (salty).