Are you growing pumpkins in your vege garden? If you are, then perhaps you are in dire need of a few more pumpkin recipes, with a garage taken over with pumpkin storage. There’s only so much pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, roast pumpkin, pumpkin soup, pumpkin salad that you can eat. I also like raw pumpkin grated onto a salad sandwich. And then there’s dried pumpkin seeds to use as well! Anyway, add this to your glut-of-pumpkin arsenal. Simmered pumpkin.

A website I have recently started to get into is Self Sufficient Me (also on FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter). While I’m not on the same level by ANY stretch of the imagination, I do grow a few veges and herbs to add to my cooking. Some of the more unusual produce will be featured on this blog. I probably won’t grow pumpkins, as they tend to take over, as Mark can attest. He was recently talking about all his pumpkins that he has harvested, and that he and his family are starting to get sick of them. This could be a recipe for them!

This dish is really good at room temperature, so works well in lunchboxes (its a common dish in bento boxes), or as a side dish to a casual Japanese feast. I like to serve this at a lunch with friends, alongside karaage, dressed green beans, sashimi, seaweed salad and maybe some grilled prawns. Also works well in a Japanese Breakfast.

Simmered Pumpkin かぼちゃの煮物

• Servings: 4
• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

A very simple tasty dish that is great in lunchboxes, or add it as a dish to your Japanese Breakfast. It looks like I cooked this a touch too long when I took this photo!

Ingredients

• 1/2 pumpkin
• 1-2 cups water
• 3 Tbs sugar
• 2 Tbs mirin
• 1 1/2 Tbs soy sauce

Directions

1. Cut the pumpkin into bit sized chunks
2. Cut some of the skin off. It doesn’t need to be all of it though – patches of skin look and taste great
3. Round off the edges of the pumpkin. This stops it breaking up in the simmering stage
4. Place all the pumpkin in a single layer in a saucepan, skin side down, and pour in enough water to just cover them
5. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and add the sugar. Continue to simmer on medium for a minute, until sugar has dissolved
6. Cover with a drop lid, to keep the pumpkin submerged. and simmer on low heat until the liquid is reduced by half
7. Add the mirin and soy sauce, and continue to simmer until the liquid has reduced to about a third
8. Take off the heat and let it cool

If the pumpkin is starting to look like it is so cooked that it is falling apart, move on to the next step regardless of where the liquid is up to.