Salted “Kabocha” 塩かぼちゃ

The quality of “Kabocha かぼちゃ” Japanese pumpkin/squash” from Weee is excellent. In the past, the quality of kabocha we bought from other places was hit-or-miss. Sometimes, the texture was watery and did not have the dense texture or “hoku-hoku ほくほく” or sweet taste characteristic of good kabocha. In any case, instead of making the usual simmered kabocha, I made this “salted kabocha 塩かぼちゃ” using a kabocha we got recently from Weee. After checking recipes on-line, I used one of simplest ones I saw on Youtube. This was dubbed: “even watery kabocha turnes out sweet and “hoku-hoku”. Turned out the recipe was correct; I am impressed. Even without the addition of any sugar the dish was sweet with a subtle salty taste and nice dense texture (#1). 

Ingredients:
1/4 kabocha, skin mostly removed by shaving it off using a heavy knife, cut into half inch cubes
1 tsp salt

Directions:
Add the kabocha and salt in a bowl and coat the surface. Let it sit for several hours or overnight in the refrigerator until some water accumulates in the bottom of the bowl
Add the kabocha and accumulated water into a pan which snuggly accommodates the kabocha. cubes (I used a frying pan with a high rim)
Cover with a tight lid and on low flame cook until the kabocha is tender when tested with a fork (about 15 minutes)
Check occasionally and if needed add a small mount of water (I added 1 tbs of water after10 minutes)
After it finished cooking only a very small amount of water was left in the bottom of the pan. when cooled all liquid was reabsorbed into the squash (picture #2)

This is an excellent and simple way to cook kabocha.