Squash With Beautiful Hue, Light Sweetness, and Salty Accent
I cooked some hearty squash that I haven’t eaten for decades. Ironically, I also added fish sauce, an ingredient that I seldomly use.
Below are some links to more details, including photos:
My Story
Growing up, my mom cooked chayote squash with dried shrimp or ground pork. Since this fruit was on sale at the nearby supermarket, I decided to buy some, but I wanted to explore other ways to prepare it.
Inspiring Recipe
After a quick search, I found the Chayote Squash Recipe from The Kitchn, a food site made by home cooks.
First Try
Since I found out that I needed onions for the recipe, I made a second trip back to the supermarket. As soon as I purchased the missing item, I was ready to attempt the dish.
Ingredients to Use
Below are the ingredients that I planned for the recipe:
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 11.92 ounces of yellow onion
- 37.56 ounces of chayote squash
- 2 ounces + 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of fish sauce
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
With the help of the chart in the article, What Size are Small, Medium and Large Onions and How Much Does Each Yield Chopped?, from CulinaryLore’s website, I was able to figure out how much onion to use.
Also, because I didn’t have any vegetable oil as called for in the recipe, I substituted it with olive oil.
Steps to Prepare
Within the three steps of the instructions, I only had to make minor adjustments as follows:
- Step 2 – Used a wok to cook in instead of a 12-inch nonstick or cast iron skillet.
- Step 3 – Added an extra minute to the cooking time for the onions bits, totaling four minutes, before they began to soften.
Time to Eat
Soon the chayote squash slices were done. Here’s a bowl of them with the pretty shade of green!
Recipe Rating
Below were the results of the recipe after the first try:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰 | 🙂 |
After taking a bite of the dish, I realized that the chayote squash and onion pieces were a little undercooked. However, the light sweetness of the squash and saltiness from fish sauce complemented each other well.
Second Try
During the second attempt, my goal was to have the dish a little softer.
Ingredients to Use
With only 18.02 ounces of chayote squash during the second round, I decreased the remaining ingredients to the following:
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 6.14 ounces of yellow onion
- 2 tablespoons + 3/4 teaspoon of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon + 3/4 teaspoon of fish sauce
Again, I used freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
Steps to Prepare
Like I did during the first attempt, I made some modifications to Steps 2 and 3. However, they were slightly different than before, as follows:
- Step 2 – Used a 10-inch cast iron skillet instead of a wok to cook the garlic for one minute, as opposed to two last time.
- Step 3 – Not only did I add extra cooking time for the onion, totaling six minutes, I also kept the chayote squash on the stove a little longer, for a total of 12 minutes.
Time to Eat
I was hoping that the dish would be more tender with the extra cooking time.
Recipe Rating
Below are the results of the recipe from the second attempt:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰 | 🙂 |
The sweetness from chayote squash with a tad of fish sauce flavor came through again, but most importantly, everything was soft!
In the future, I’d like to retain the bright green color from the chayote squash by trying the following:
Continuous Improvement
- Adjust the cooking time in proportion with the amount of chayote squash used as compared to the default recipe.
Since I had a feeling that I might’ve overcooked the second batch of chayote squash, I did some research and learned the following that I would like to share with my previous self:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- Slightly undercook chayote squash. (I learned this from the article, Chayote Isn’t Your Average Summer Squash, from the VICE website.)
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Try the Chayote Squash Recipe from The Kitchn, a food site made by home cooks?
- Share your favorite chayote squash recipe?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)