What is the deal with kabocha squash?

[slkinsey]

What is the deal with Kabocha squash? Am I crazy, or is this turning up on menus all over town... even at Oprah's birthday party.

[Suzanne F]

Dunno -- but they are so pretty! And IMO have better flavor than butternut, which is soooooooooo overused.

[Richard Kilgore]

Why yes. I have one sitting on my coffee table it is such a good looking squash. But I haven't baked one yet. It is sweet, so I think I'll try it for the dessert squash recipe in Paula Wolfert's last book.

Are they simply baking it, or doing something special with it?

[slkinsey]

I hate squash, so I really don't know what they're doing with it. I've just noticed it on practically every high-end menu I've seen in the last 6 months.

[Richard Kilgore]

slk -- what did squash ever do to you? What did you ever do to squash? Maybe you just don't understand squash. And then again, maybe squash doesn't understand you.

Anyone know what they are doing with kabocha?

[slkinsey]

slk -- what did squash ever do to you? What did you ever do to squash? Maybe you just don't understand squash. And then again, maybe squash doesn't understand you.

Although I grew up in Boston, both my parents are from the South. Squash is a major staple of the Southern diet. The Kinsey dinner table featured a lot of squash. This, combined with my mother's ironclad "you have to eat at least a bite of everything" rule and "you don't have to like it, but you do have to eat it" philosophy means that I have tried pretty much every type and preparation of squash at least 50 times. The smell of pureed acorn or butternut squash is still enough to make me gag. I have no doubt that I could overcome this aversion a la Steingarten, but I am confortable with my prejudices. (That said, I always try it again if I get squash as part of a dish at a fancy restaurant.)

[Wolfert]

I love kabocha squash in couscous . To enhance the flavor, I cut it into cubes, then bake them for a short time in a medium oven so that they cook in their own moisture and retain their natural sweetness. Then when I add the to the simmering spiced stock, the cubes absorb its flavor too----kabocha seems to absorb the flavoring for almost anything cooked with it.

[Richard Kilgore]

I see. Well then, I guess squash shouldn't be a major part of our New York-Texas cultural exchange program. But these are Japanese squash. I'll let you know if you could pretend they are unrelated to the squash of your youth.

[Katherine]

I just made a kabocha squash stew with spicy seitan (cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, and nutmeg), sweet and hot red peppers, onions, and garlic, in a creamy gravy made from a pumpkin seed milk.

Lunch for the week.

Kabocha is the dry kind of squash I prefer, but I only see it about once a year. Maybe this is a good sign?

[Jinmyo]

Hate squash.

But I serve it fairly often as folk like it. I prefer kobacha to most other kinds.

Soups with lobster or shrimp and some nice chiles.

Pieces blackened and served with shoyu and wasabi.

Braised in a tamarind stock.

But it's too sweet for my own palate.

[GG Mora]

Mmmm. Kabocha. I split, seed and roast them, then scrape out the pulp and mash or purée it with salt and pepper. Perfectly delicious all by itself. Sometimes you get a dry one that needs some liquid added to the purée. Milk works, so does chicken broth or apple cider. Close runners-up are Sweet Dumpling and Delicata squashes. You can have your Butternut.

[torakris]

I love kabocha and it is the only squash I buy, Ok it is actually the only squash you can really find in Japan so I don't have much of a choice. But it is a great squash.

It tends to be drier than other squashes and doesn't take as well to the cut in half and roast in the oven treatment that I like to do with acorn squashes, it is great in soups and cut up in chunks and roasted. Like Paula said it goes great with couscous after being roasted, I have two favorite recipes for this (both from Donna Hay) and one also includes green beans and a minty yogurt dressing, the other is with snow peas and a harisssa based dressing.

Kabocha is also great on the BBQ, thinly slice it and rub with salt, pepper and EVOO and grill until tender, I do a similar version indoor with a griddle pan and top it with some ponzu (or a mix of some soy and some citrus).

And of course the most common preparation for it in Japan, the dish of simmered kabocha:

http://recipes.egullet.com/recipes/r339.html

[Hest88]

I hate most squash, but I do like kabocha. It tastes more like sweet potato than other kinds of squash.

[Tracy K.]

To give you the botanical/gardener's perspective...kabocha squash is related to hubbard squash (the giant blue one popular in New England) and is actually the same as a buttercup squash...there's simply no "button" on the bottom of the kabocha. The botanical name is Curcurbita maxima.

Butternut squash's botanical name is Curcurbita moschata. (I've also seen it spelled mopschata.)

The largest genus within the Curcurbita species is 'pepo', which includes pumpkin, spaghetti, acorn, and delicata winter squash--as well as summer squashes such as zucchini, patty pan, etc.

Thus, all squashes are the same species; many squashes are the same genus.

Ain't nature amazing....

And isn't this FAR more information than you ever wanted to know?

[Pan]

Thus, all squashes are the same species; many squashes are the same genus.

?

Do you mean the reverse?

[Tracy K.]

Indeed...and in the words of Willie Wonka..."Strike that; reverse it."