no-rules stuffed kabocha
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My boss made for his family's Thanksgiving and it sounded too good to pass up.
What I absolutely adore about the recipe is that its flexibility. The kabocha could be a regular pumpkin, a butternut squash, or an acorn squash. The benefit of using kabocha is, you guessed it, you can eat the whole thing, skin and all. I also think it looks prettier than the almost-almost collapsing traditional pumpkin. The basic idea is to stuff the vegetable with a salty meat, bread, cheese and a bit of cream and then bake it. The only caveat is that baking a kabocha can take a bit of time; budget 2 hours for this one. A great meal if you can come home early, or definitely for a proper weekend meal. It can also be a side dish for chicken or Thanksgiving turkey. One last note. The proportions are close, but approximate, depending on how big or small your kabocha/pumpkin/squash is. |
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1 kabocha, split in half and cored
2 shallots, thinly sliced 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced Homemade pork sausage or about 1/2 cup of bulk pork sausage4-6 slices of asiago cheese or sourdough bread, cubed |
1-2 handfuls of mozzarrella or sharp cheddar cheese, grated
About 1t of dry thyme or fresh sage Black pepper, to taste About 1/4-1/3 cup of heavy cream |
Before baking: skin side down, full, but not stuffed
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Crumble and cook the pork sausage. Remove from pan and dump into a mixing bowl. Using the same pan, cook shallots until limp. Dump shalllots into the mixing bowl. Add garlic and bread and toss until well mixed. Add a handful or so of cheese and mix well.
Put the kabocha halves in an 8 x 8 pyrex pan, skin side down. Stuff the kabocha with the sausage mixture. It should be well-stuffed and a little overflowing. Do not smash down and compact it. Add a little bit of water to the pan, just enough to cover the bottom. Drizzle heavy cream into each stuffed half, just enough to moisten it up. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for about an hour. Then take off the foil and let it go for another 15-20 minutes so everything gets nice and golden brown. NOTES:
1) The original recipe uses bacon, Gruyere, bread cubes and garlic only. No shallots, which I added for more flavor. 2) Next time, I'm trying it with either My Daddy's Fried Rice or Portuguese Sausage Sticky Rice, but instead of using cream, I'll use chicken broth. |