Red kuri
Cucurbita maxima · Squash
Top 10 pairings
Red kuri — also called onion squash, Hokkaido squash or by its Japanese name kuri kabocha ("chestnut squash") — is a small, teardrop-shaped winter squash with a smooth, hard, orange-red rind and dense, chestnut-sweet flesh. It is roughly the size and shape of a large onion, which is where the English name comes from, and its interior is deep golden-orange, dry and floury when cooked, tasting of roasted chestnut with a mellow sweet-potato warmth. The thin skin softens on cooking and is normally eaten, so the whole squash goes into the pot without peeling.
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