Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Kawaii!! Bo-chan Kabocha

My favorite vegetable comes in an enticing variety of sizes, from the cute-as-a-button baby "bo-chan" pumpkin in the photo above up to giant squashed-soccer-ball size monsters that require a meat cleaver to split in half (I let the shop do that part for me). As the flavor varies from one kabocha to the next, and doesn't seem to be much affected by size, I usually just go for whatever my produce man says is good, and what he generally has in stock is the mid-sized variety. Recently, though, I had a couple of mini-pumpkins come my way, and while they both tasted indistinguishable from the larger ones I usually eat, they were certainly cuter - not to mention easier to cut. That teensy one at the top was recommended by my produce man, and it was indeed surprisingly thick-fleshed and sweet - its cavity was so small I could barely get my fingers in to scrape out the seeds. The softball-sized handful in the photo below is from Kawakami Farm, and it too was sweet and succulent. I often let pumpkins from the store age a little after cutting them, as this seems to cut down on the occasional tendency toward wateriness, but neither of these needed it. It's been a great week for this pumpkin-eater.

No comments:

Post a Comment