Kabocha
Cucurbita maxima · Squash
Top 10 pairings
Kabocha — the Japanese pumpkin, also written kabocha squash — is the squat, dark-green, ridged-skinned winter squash prized for flesh that is dense, dry and intensely sweet. Cut one open and the deep-orange interior is almost free of water; cooked, it eats like a cross between chestnut and sweet potato, fluffy and floury rather than wet. The thin rind, tough and leathery raw, turns tender and edible once the squash is steamed or roasted.
Picking a good onedrag
Cured hard, just pickedSoft-spotted, weeping
Shop firmEveryday bestThe all-rounder: roast, soup, pie, curry.
StemHard and dry, cut short
Rind under a nailNail marks it, will not pierce
SkinMatte, one pale ground patch
Smell at the stemFaintly green, clean
These cues are Pumpkin's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
70%
Edible part
952 g flesh · rind, seeds and stem out
1360 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
A whole one wants a cool room, not the fridge. Below 10 C the rind pits. Chill cut wedges.
50–70%
Humidity
Open and airy
Airflow