A few weeks ago, my ministry team had a “fall-themed” potluck. For a good chunk of people, the first thought that came to mind was:

Squash.

Pumpkin.

Orange.

Thus, a good percentage of the dishes people brought was some sort of variation of any of the aforementioned words above. I was no different. One of my favorite food bloggers introduced this idea that Chinese sticky rice (aka lo mai fan) could be an Asian twist on the Thanksgiving idea of stuffing.

I thought this idea was genius.

So I decided to make sticky rice stuffed squash, taken directly from Kristina Cho’s recipe blog, Eat Cho Food.

Making It

So this was the first time I handled kabocha squash. In terms of handling squash, the last time I handled anything of that variety/sort of vegetable was a sugar pie pumpkin I eviscerated for pumpkin pie filling (0/10, not worth the effort). Whatever I did to handle that pumpkin, I forgot it at this point so I guess…it’s the equivalent of me not handling pumpkin at all.

Anyway, so to say, this is all an excuse as explaining why I thought taking a meat cleaver and taking a violent swing at the squash was a legitimate idea.

It was not fruitful.

My next run of it, figuring the cleaver was too dull, was stabbing with a chef’s knife and sawing my way across. Again, the skin proved too tough for that I realized that that too was a fruitless endeavor.

My next step to google “how to cut kabocha squash”, which is arguably the approach that I should’ve started out with in the first place.

After consulting the expert advice of those who hast cut many a squash before me, I stuck the kabocha squash in the microwave for 5 minutes to soften the flesh inside. Then, using a kitchen towel because I realized it was going to be hot when I took it out, I was able to use a kitchen knife to sink into the top of the squash and saw off the top before using a spoon to scoop out the guts/seeds. I then repeated this process with two other squash.

I was fighting for oven space at this time with two of my roommates who were also coincidentally using the oven. I elected to squeeze all three squash onto one baking tray and roast it open face down for the next 35 minutes.

In the mean time, I took some dried shiitake mushrooms and soaked it in some hot water for thirty minutes. These were surprisingly rubbery and hard to cut where the easiest approach I came up with was to squeeze out the excess water and fold the mushroom in half and cut it in its folded form before dicing it further.

Making the sticky rice was relatively straightforward. I was a little bit worried when I saw that there was a soaking step for the rice but elected to ignore that in favor of the recipe. After about thirty minutes of simmering, I had my rice.

Since I couldn’t find kohlrabi at the grocery store, I found a suitable substitute with diced up broccoli stalks.

The rest of the recipe came together with stirfrying the Chinese sausage, followed by the broccoli stalks, then the mushrooms, then the proper seasoning of oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a lil bit of white pepper. I then took the sticky rice and added that directly to the wok with everything else, along with some scallions. I added enough soy sauce to make that dark color and used a rice paddle to mix everything together.

It was around this time that the squash finished roasting. After wisely letting it cool down for the next few minutes, I went through the effort of flipping each squash with a spatula, hoping to God that this would not disintegrate during the flipping. Miraculously, it didn’t.

The proportions for this recipe are amazing. I had just enough sticky rice to fill up the three pumpkins pretty well. I then stuck it broil for the next three minutes until I notice the tops getting browned/crispy.

This is the end result.

Granted, perhaps it would look prettier of the tops were roasted too but whatever, didn’t have space or time for that.

Overall, this was a pretty solid recipe. Sticky rice is always satisfying to eat. I also liked this Asian spin on the idea of Thanksgiving stuffing. Not that I normally eat stuffing for Thanksgiving but I would consider this as a possibly superior alternative to it if the opportunity came up again!

Other Stuff I’ve Made Too

I’ve not been good about documenting other stuff that I’ve made lately, which I apologize again for.

A few weeks ago, I was put in charge of team dinner and decided to make an Indonesian-themed dinner, featuring one of my favorite dishes–sate babi or Indonesian pork skewers. The menu for that night was:

• Sate babi skewers (for ~20 skewers, according to my mom’s recipe)
  • Pork butt (2 lbs)
  • Salt (2 tbsp)
  • 1 chili pepper
  • Black pepper (1 tbsp)
  • Chicken seasoning/MSG (2 tbsp)
  • Cumin (1 tbsp)
  • Garlic (6 cloves)
  • Shallot (4 cloves)
  • Kecap manis (5-6 tbsp)
  • Coriander (2 tbsp)
  • Sugar (3 tbsp)
• Nasi uduk betawi
  • I should’ve added less lemongrass (maybe half the amount) but very fragrant. Not bad. More coconut flavor would’ve been appreciated.
• Kangkung tumis terasi (shout out to my friend who bought me Coconut and Sambal by Lara Lee, this is the first recipe I’ve tried from this book)
  • Wow, this dish actually came out very well. I also marvel at how much vegetables shrink when cooked. I bought ~5 lbs of water spinach and saw it shrink to fit into a half-size aluminum tray before my eyes.
  • Belacan terasi is amazing. It stank up the whole house but it is amazing. Like fish sauce, except better. I think I added double the amount the recipe asked for. No regrets.

Trying to pull off this menu for a team dinner was a terrible dinner, in hindsight. I would never do this again.

Because of the absolute chaos involved with making this happen, I have very little photos to show for this.

For a team of 35-40 people, do you know how many skewers one needs to make?

I can tell you, whatever that number is, I did not make that number. I estimated to make 100, when I should’ve probably made closer to 150. I ended making last-minute skewers, which included non-marinated meat. Unfortunately, you really can taste the difference between marinated and non-marinated meat. This was mistake #1.

It was incredibly labor intensive and I literally did not know what I was signing up for because I don’t plan ahead.

I thought it would take me a few hours to finish everything. By myself. Again, that was mistake #2.

The one saving grace of this meal was my IH church team, who inadvertently got dragged into this with me. After finishing up our IH service for the day, I mentioned that I was going to spend the next couple hours, finishing up dinner for team meeting. One of them asked if I needed help and offered his free hours, claiming that “he got nothing else better to do.”

He ended up being incredibly efficient, being much faster at working in a kitchen than I was, which I was very thankful for. He singlehandedly stringed up the meat on around ~100 skewers. As a bonus, he also showed me how to grill things as well too.

My other team member volunteered to help me with cutting vegetables and taking care of the dirty dishes/tools piling in the sink, which also took an extra layer of bandwidth on my mind. She also was the first to sense that we would need extra food and volunteered to pick up supplementary food from the gracious provider of 99 Ranch.

Between the three of us, we ended up finishing the meal in just under four hours, with time to spare before team meeting.

Wow, that was amazing.

The meal in itself was alright. It wasn’t bad but I think it could’ve been better. Something I’ve learned from this was that this is a very hard meal to make on a larger scale and likely would’ve tasted better if made in smaller batches. This is a meal, meant for quality, rather than quantity.

The highlight of making this was witnessing the power of community to help me accomplish a task that I would not think (though I should’ve done so and definitely needed it) to ask for help for. I am incredibly grateful for my IH church team and their help.

I would like to make this meal again to do my people better justice for their food. Never for a team dinner but maybe a house dinner!