Flavored Japanese Pumpkin (Kabocha)

According to my Japanese Home Style Cooking book, there's a saying in Japan "If we eat pumpkin in the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) we will not catch cold through the winter." It was known from olden days that pumpkin was a good source of carotin.

• Ready In: 35 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 1⁄4 lbs  kabocha squash
• 1 1⁄4 cups  dashi
• 2  tablespoons mirin
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 tablespoon soy sauce

Directions

1. Halve or quarter pumpkin and remove seeds and stringy part. Cut into 2 inch pieces. Slice off skin at random to give surface a mottled look and to enable flavor of dashi to seep inches.
2. Put pumkin in saucepan with the skin side down, and add dashi. Bring to a boil; add mirin and cook over low heat for 5 minutes with "dropped lid" (put a small lid that will fit inside the sauce pan to hold down ingredients.) right on top of the ingredients. Add salt and soy sauce.
3. Cover with saucepan lid. Simmer until soft and most fo the liquid evoprates. Turn off heat and cool in saucepan to let the flavor steep.
4. Note: The dropped lid method of putting a smaller wooden lid or aluminum lid directly on top of the ingredients keeps the ingredients from crumbling and helps spead the flavor of the broth evenly, without stirring.