Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin 2

by Travel Report in Sorachi sub-prefectural area

Do you remember the article about pumpkin ?It's the best season to eat and make the most of pumpkin now.
Speaking of pumpkin, pumpkin potage was served as an appetizer of the lunch set in the restaurant I dropped by.
The theme of the seminar on veggie and fruit given by the senior veggie sommelier Ms.Masako Yoshikawa was also "pumpkin".
Here I tell a bit about pumpkin;)

Largely the pieces of pumpkins can be divided into three kinds, Japanese pumpkin(Oriental pumpkin), Occidental pumpkin and Pepo-pumpkin.
Japanese pumpkin contains plenty of water in it and tastes sweet and feel sticky.it accounts for the most part of the pumpkins in the market until 40 years ago.
As the way and manner of calorie in-take became like occidental, the number of farmers who produce Japanese pumpkin decreased. Nowadays, more sweet and not-so-sticky occidental pumpkins that can be cooked in various kinds way are sweeping from sea to sea. The pieces of pumpkin such as "Ebisu", "Miyako" and "Yuki-geshou" that we eat frequently are occidental pumpkins.

The pumpkin above is a kind of Japanese pumpkin called "Kogiku"「小菊」 which means small chrysanthemum in Japanese.
It has deep vertical groove on its surface and the shape seen from above is like the flower of chrysanthemum. It is said that is the reason the pumpkin was named, I heard.
When I tried it, actually it contained plenty of water and was wet.
As it is strong enough not to be broken down to pieces while being boiled, it is suitable to cook Japanese mixed boiled pot.

Pepo-pumpkin has unique shape, taste and feelings and butternuts and noodle pumpkins that I introduced before also belong to pepo-pumpkin.
I found the venue where various kinds of pumpkins like that could be purchased even in Sapporo City. It is "The variation of food sourced locally" "HUG Mart" at Tanuki  Koji 5 chome.

There were so many pumpkins produced in Sorachi sub-prefectural area such as Iwamizawa City, Akabira City, Kuriyama Town and Mikasa City.

This pumpkin is called "eaty" and not so sticky, sweet. It is so sweet and suitable to be boiled or fried as tempura.
 Oh, a Japanese pumpkin was among the occidentals.
These yellow species are called "Korinki" (I am not sure the right spelling.) derived from South Africa. They are crisp and the fresh peel can be eaten with the rest. The colour is so vivid and beautiful that it is suitable to salad or being pickled.

 There were butternut pumpkins what I introduced on this blog site, too

I tried to cook the baby pumpkin in the way Ms.Yoshikawa taught me！
This time, I cook this baby pumpkin raised in Kuriyama Town.
First off, I put it upside down into the microwave oven with the power of 600W and cook it for three minutes. 

After cutting off the upper side of the pumpkin to use it as a lid, the pumpkin should be wrapped up with cooking wrapping and be put into the microwave oven again. Cooked for two minutes in the oven, the seeds and the flesh inside should be taken off.  
Put two spoon of sugar and  100cc of fresh cream into the bowl, mix it up, add an egg and mix up again.
Then, put in the flesh of the pumpkin and vanilla essence.  Put the mixture into the pumpkin cup and steam it up for 15 minutes.

As the time to steam depends on the size of the pumpkin, please check if it has bee steamed enough or not by poking a bamboo stick.

I made it!
Very delicious pumpkin pudding is here!

Pumpkins just after the harvest is not edible. It takes a while after harvesting to make its starch inside glucose.
If you want to eat as soon as possible, put the pumpkin in the warm room. In such a way, the pumpkins produced in Hokkaido can be enjoyed until the end of this year.
Pumpkins are so high in Karotin, vitamin etc and are said to have the effect to fend off flu and cold. Please prepare for cold winter season with delicious pumpkins.