Kamo Kamo Maori Squash and Italian Borlotti Beans

From my garden, and my friends' gardens

A crop that gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews. 

A Maori friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil... for me!) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork.

I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery.

Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft.

I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be good with more vegetables (maybe a little carrot and some parsley leaves) but I didn't add anything else as these have quite strong flavours and I really wanted to taste the kamo kamo as much as possible. The resulting stew (or soup, if you use more water) was nice although the kamo kamo doesn't have a distinctive flavour like pumpkin.

For the second experiment: well, nice to have the kamo kamo as a side vegetables with olive oil, but once agin I think that my husband liked it more than I did. Next time I will need to put something 'stronger" on, like pesto, or a sesame seed and miso dressing :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©