In the cold season, hot dishes with white sauce taste better. Today, Chef Seiji “Waka” Waka-bayashi of bushi-tei, a popular French restaurant in San Francisco’s Japantown, introduces hot kabocha squash gratin with hot white sauce.

Ingredients (serves four)

Kabocha squash (ones from Hokkaido are the best).....1/2
Onion...1/2
Bacon...3 slices
Olive oil.....50 CC (3 tbsp.)
Butter.....30 g (2 tbsp.)
Flour.....40 g (2/5 cup)
Milk.....2~2 1/2 cup
Shredded cheese.....1 ounce
Salt and pepper.....to taste

(1) Chop bacon into small pieces. Take the skin off the kabocha and slice it into pieces a quarter-inch thick. Thin-slice the onion.

(2) Warm olive oil in a frying pan and stir-fry bacon and onion slices. When the onion slices soften, add kabocha slices, cover and steam on low heat. Flip the mixture a few times. Add salt and pepper and stir-fry well.

(3) Melt butter in different pot, add flour and mix over low heat. Mix and fold in flour until it becomes smooth mixture. Be careful not to burn.

(4) Add warm milk to the pot, stir well with wooden spoon until it becomes paste. Add cheese and stir more.

(5) Butter gratin dishes, put in the kabocha, onion and bacon, and cover with the white sauce. Bake on the bottom of an oven heated at 375 degrees, about 20 to 25 minutes, until the surface of the dish turns yellow.

Points!

There is another way to make white sauce. Leave butter at room temperature for while. Place it in a bowl with flour, mix well until it becomes paste.

Warm milk over low heat in a pot, add the mixture slowly and mix well until it becomes smooth, then salt and pepper to taste.