Squash with skirt steak

[nancylebov]

1 kabucha squash, maybe a foot across-- I think it resulted in about a pound and a half of cooked squash
something between a half a pound and a pound of cooked skirt steak from Whole Foods
olive oil
a little goat's milk, maybe two or three ounces
aleppo pepper
Auntie Arwen's Buccaneer's Booty West Indie's Fish Mix: coriander, black pepper, yellow mustard seed, lime peel & juice, coconut, cumin, cloves
salt

Cook the squash. I cut it into quarters and baked it in the microwave. 24 minutes per quarter. The last quarter was overcooked and had very little usable flesh. I don't know why, but it was the quarter with the stem-- maybe that conducted heat more.

Stir the spices in olive oil at a moderate heat. Add the squash and skirt steak. I discovered that it was kind of bland, so I added more spices and some salt.

When it was heated up, I added the goat's milk. The milk was bubbling kind of aggressively, so I lowered the heat.

Very tasty. Fatty meat with squash is a huge win. I think squash with bacon is going to happen in the forseeable future.

Kombucha squash (or at least that one) has a sort of a tang which seemed to want sweet spices. My original plan was lavender, honey, and goat's milk, but the Fish Mix turned up before I found the lavender. The goat's milk was a hangover from the original plan, and may not have made much difference.

Comments

[twistedchick]

How do you cook kombucha? I've never managed to make it edible; it's hard as a rock.

[nancylebov]

I misspelled the kabucha squash-- it's corrected in the post now.

I didn't know cooking them was a problem-- as I said, 24 minutes per quarter in the microwave.

Why 24 minutes? I intended 20, but accidentally entered 2:00 twice, and then put in 20:00 out of stubbornness. The first quarter came out well, so I thought 24 minutes would be good for the other three quarters. It worked well for the second and third quarters, but not for the fourth. If I do it again, I might check in at the 15 or 20 minute mark.

What have you tried?

[twistedchick]

Same as other winter squash: sliced open, on a pan either over water or not, at 325 F for an hour in the oven. It came out hard and grainy when over water, impenetrable when not.

[nancylebov]

I'm assuming it was a kabucha, it looked like it should be (pumpkin-shaped, dark green rind)-- but I got it from an Asian guy who sells some unusual veggies at a farmer's market, so maybe it was some other sort of squash.

Alternatively, maybe there's something weird about the kabuchas in your neighborhood. Is there a local cooking group you could ask?

[twistedchick]

Well, I was told it was a kabocha, but it looked like a turk's turban -- big squash with smaller raised area around the stem?

[nancylebov]

Mine was a simple pumpkin shape-- slight downwards curve into the stem.

Great idea

[metawyrd]

It sounds like yum!

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Sounds great. My crockpot tells me it wants meat, now. (What, don't you converse with your kitchen equipment?)