Winter Melon Chicken Mushroom Soup

When cooked in soups, winter melon is typically added in bigger chunks or smaller cubes. I have even "pulverized" it before but not to this extent that you cannot even see them.


Winter melon is mildly sweet and when the "puree" is added to the chicken soup at the last leg of cooking, it balances the chicken soup to perfection; more importantly, retain as much nutrients (e.g. Vitamin C) as possible. The winter melon "puree" also acts as a natural thickener to the soup - slightly thick, not as thick like a "cream-based" soup.

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Fuzzy Hairy Melon with Chicken & Mushrooms 金针菇鸡肉虾皮毛瓜

Similar to chayote and the other melons and gourds, Hairy Gourd (a.k.a Jointed Gourd 节瓜) - most often used in Asian/Chinese cooking - is an ingredient that is often consumed in summer, with benefits of alleviating inner body heat and detoxification.

Unlike winter melon 冬瓜 which is considered "cooling" (yin) and perhaps too "cooling" for the chilly fall/winter months, hairy melon is relatively "neutral" - often recommended by Chinese physicians if one cannot take too much "cooling" food. That also means hairy melon can be consumed even when summer is past, and when autumn falls in.


Hairy gourd has mild sweet and succulent flesh, good for making soups, quick-stews and stir-fries.

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Fuzzy Melon with Shrimps and Glass Noodles 毛瓜炒虾仁

Hairy/fuzzy melon (Mao Gua 毛瓜 ) stir-fries usually come off as a homey dish - with either dried shrimps or fresh shrimps. Often this melon can also be steamed (usually with meat stuffing) or cooked in soups.

I also found out recently that in Chinese food therapy, fuzzy melon is considered more "neutral", relatively less "cooling" compared to the Yin (cold cooling) nature of most melons such as winter melon, watermelon or cucumber. From the perspective of a Yin (cooling) body, it is advisable to consume less of the "cooling" foods e.g. winter melon, watermelon so that there is no severe imbalance of Yin and Yang.


This Hairy Melon with Shrimps and Glass Noodles  毛瓜炒虾仁 (similar recipe found here) is yet another very common home-cooked dish in many Chinese families. Just cook two more vegetables dishes such as stir-fry asparagus, stir-fry kale and coupled with steamed rice or rice congee (porridge) - a meal is complete

Hairy Melon with Shrimps 毛瓜炒虾粒

This is the same dish Hairy Melon and Shrimps Stir-Fry 鲜虾炒毛瓜 I have cooked before. However, the hairy melon and shrimps were diced to tiny cubes in this dish, so becomes Hairy Melon with Diced Shrimps 毛瓜炒虾粒 ：）


Shrimps should not be overcooked. If they were added together with the hairy melon to the wok and allowed to cook altogether, the shrimps will be overcooked by the time the hairy melon is cooked tender.

Typically in such a situation, the shrimps are lightly sauteed till partially cooked (just almost about to turn pink), dished out, set aside. Then add the hairy melon, some water/chicken stock, stir-fry then simmer for about 12-15 mins till the hairy melon is cooked, then return shrimps to the same wok, and simmer at low-medium heat about 5-8 minutes till shrimps are completely cooked; and for all the flavors to develop and mix in well.

Best served with steamed rice.

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Hairy Melon Stir-Fry with Dried Shrimps 清炒毛瓜

Look at the minuscule hair on this melon/squash! That's why it's called hairy melon! Or call it hairy cucumber.

Similar to winter melon, hairy melon-毛瓜 (Mo Gua) has white flesh (firmer than winter melon) and is relatively neutral in taste. Hairy melon works well in soups, steamed or stir-fried! For this Hairy Melon Stir-Fry with Dried Shrimps - 清炒毛瓜, the melon was thinly sliced so it cooks faster and allows flavors to be imparted more evenly and uniformly.


And the ingredients are pretty simple too! Garlic, dried shrimps, hairy melon (grated coarsely, or thinly sliced). A little soy sauce, and lots of ground white pepper to spice it up.

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Green & Yellow Split Pea Soup

Written about yellow split peas some time ago, and also cooked them in light stews.

Hairy Melon Stew with Green and Yellow Split Peas

Green split pea has a slightly more "pea" flavor, yellow a little milder, but end of the day, hardly noticeable. If nutrients are the concern, don't worry about it as there is no big difference. The color mix is useful mainly for visual presentation - with a mix of yellow and green might complementing the dish better than mono-colored peas, don't you think?

I cooked hairy melon soup (recipe here) again, using a mix of yellow and green split peas this time.


Recently, I have been using split peas in cooking quite often as I find them really easy to use and incorporate in pronto (don't have to soak them overnight like dried chickpeas). Plus, they cook relatively fast without overnight soaking,

Dried peas/beans that requires no overnight soaking and cooks fast - that...is especially useful.


I am sharing this with My Legume Love Affair - MLLA hosted by Simona Briciole

Tag: split peas, split pea stew

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Indian-Style Hairy Melon Stew 印度式毛瓜汤

This Homemade Indian-Style Hairy Melon Stew is somewhat a simplified version of Sambar.


Homemade Indian-Style Hairy Melon Stew
As simple as hairy melon, split peas and tomatoes in aromatics of onions, garlic, ginger, curry leaves, cumin, dash of coriander and ground turmeric - that's basically it. Salt to taste and generous garnish of finely chopped cilantro.

It is really a light stew that nevertheless warm us inside out in the cold autumn nights.

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Sambar (Sambhar) - Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Certainly, I hope this was better than the last time. Sambar (Sambhar) is a dish I enjoy so I yearn to make improvements every time. As Asian (Chinese) who grew up eating mainly Chinese food, Indian cooking does not come natural for me. However, since Indian cuisine is one of my favorites, I have learn a few home-cooked Indian dishes mainly from my friend's mom who is Indian; and based on what I have tried and tasted.


I kept the choice of vegetables for this vegetarian Sambar (basic cooking instructions found here) much simpler this time with winter melon, radish, green beans and cauliflower.


The correct way to enjoy Sambar is to treat it like a gravy-based dish and NOT a stew-based dish. It was funny when my friend's mother saw how me and my friend ate (or practically, DRANK!) Sambar like a soup-stew. That's not the way! You are supposed to drizzle a little gravy over rice, or dip Indian roti in them.


Right. Just imagine your classic Chinese Ginger-Soy Sauce Chicken in which we usually scoop gravy over the rice, mix it up, then eat it. Sambar should be treated and enjoyed the same way. For her to see us eat Sambar like a soup-stew, is like sending spoonfuls of ginger-soy sauce from the chicken dish, straight from the plate to the mouth.


It is less than 20 days to Thanksgiving. So how about a Vegetarian dish for Vegetarian Thanksgiving, also November 2011 theme for Healing Foods - hosted at Sreelu's Tasty Travels ?

What is your wish-list this Thanksgiving?

Tag: indian sambar, vegetarian

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Winter Melon Barley Soup 冬瓜薏仁汤

Straight after I tried a winter melon soup in a Chinese (Cantonese) restaurant at the South Bay recently, I had the immediate urge to cook something similar at home. It was a clear soup, light yet super flavorful, filled with natural sweetness and delicious savoriness, quite different from the usual winter melon soup I cook at home. I did not have the exact recipe and while I sipped it, had to look hard at each scoopful of soup (till the bottom of the soup pot) for ingredients that have gone into the soup. I saw large cubes of winter melon, huge chucks of pork, thin slices of orange peel and little pearls of barley. OK. I can make this. And, I will make this.


I was planning to cook this soup and a week after, coincidentally saw another super interesting idea related to winter melon at Taste Hong Kong's Snowy Winter Melon Soup. Alright! I am going to pulverize my winter melon to get that snowy silky texture in this "new" soup that I am going to cook at home!

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Wintermelon and Meatballs in Tomato Sauce -自制番茄酱焖冬瓜肉丸

Don't be confused. Winter melon is in fact summer produce. But sights of "white ash or wax" on the melon resembles frost and makes it "winter-ish".


Winter melon is "cooling" food and helps moisten the lungs. If you are at where summer is hot and dry, winter melon can be the perfect nourishing food for the body.

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Braised Falafel with Winter-Melon

This was made using store-bought "meatless" (falafel-type) meatballs from Trader Joes - you can never imagine you can cook this with winter melon, combining the ingredients of two totally different cuisines.

Well, of course you can make your own REAL (non-vegetarian) meatballs when you cook this dish.



Braised Falafel with Winter-Melon
I did not cook this. My friend did. So I am not posting the recipe here. Anyway, there was no exact recipe to follow. She started with lightly stir-frying the winter melon, then added some water/broth to simmer and when winter melon starts to turn soft and tender, add in the store-bought meatballs and allow them to simmer with the winter melon. Salt and pepper to taste if you need. (Note: When the meatballs simmer with the winter melon, the flavors (and savory) of the meatballs have infused into the winter melon mixture and we did not even use any more salt). Some white pepper to spice the dish up a little, yes.


Store-bought + fresh ingredients: does it sound like Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade? Yikes! But I don't like her show. Oops! I do like this dish cooked by my friend though.
















Tag: falafel, winter melon

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Summer Fuzzy Melon Stew

This summer is especially cooling in the Bay Area, California. Unusual - what I always hear over the news. I was deciding between posting a cold noodle summer-like dish and a warm supposedly-non-summer stew-like dish. I will save the cold noodle dish for later. Come the stew. Why save it for Fall or Winter, especially if it is just a quick, light stew fit for all seasons.

Everyone has his or her own vegetable stew recipe and dish. I have many and hard to tell you my favorite. Sometimes, I have one choice of vegetable (choy sum, chayote, okra, Chinese okra, bittermelon, cabbage, etc.) then mix it with tomatoes or mushrooms to give more depth in flavors. Other times, I like to mix everything in a pan like this Cabbage-Bok Choy-Carrot-Mushrooms Stir-Fry or everything in a pot like this Pineapple-Bell Peppers-Broccoli-Tomato Quick-Stew . Then this one: Fuzzy Melon*-Broccoli-Carrot-Mushrooms-Tomato Quick-Stew. Sorry for this kind of string-naming for a dish as I can't be naming every dish - mixed vegetables stir-fry, mixed vegetables soup and mixed vegetables stew. :O

*Fuzzy Melon or Hairy Melon (节瓜 JieGua;  别名:毛瓜 MaoGua) is a summer produce. Mainly moisture/water and Vitamin C, this melon is good for reducing "heatiness", and cools the body, relieving us from the summer heat. It also helps clear toxins from the body. They are suitable for stir-fry, soup, and can be steamed.

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Sardines and Bittermelon Quick-Curry-Stew

I did not create anything new. Basically, I just re-marry ingredients and it must be bold of me to get these two ingredients together. Bittermelon and Brisling Sardines. Cannot imagine? Ha...I find it hard to imagine too before I wanted to cook it. I was bored with Brisling Sardines Curry with Tomatoes, Onions and Celery.


The base recipe is Bitter Melon Tomato Curry, only adding Brisling Sardines towards the last 5 minutes of cooking, mash the sardines up in this quick stew and allow the flavors to infuse.

I can tell you it is not that bad at all. The bitterness is mild, really mild. The tangy tomatoes done its job well again. Then the smoky virtues of sardines to balance the savory, sweet, tangy, bitterness - you need to try this.

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Stir Fry Hairy Melon with Black Fungus and Peas + Imagine & Guess

This furry hairy Little Winter Melon also known as Hairy Melon can be stir fried, not just in soup or steamed. I used to braise them with dried shrimps, shitake mushrooms and glass noodles into a deep flavorsome dish. Today, I am doing it milder with black fungus and green sweet peas. Black fungus gives this dish deep earthy flavors. Green peas are also naturally sweet. With that touch of salt and white pepper to taste, the dish finishes off with that drizzle of sesame oil for shine and aroma.

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Chayote (Chokos) Egg-Drop Soup

I have two renditions of chayote coming up. It is not my first time with chayote (Note: Just like cabbage, I also keep hardy chayote (chokos) in my fridge as part of my 1 week of vegetables supply). But I wanted to do something else other than stir-fry. Chayote (Chokos) Egg-Drop Soup came to my mind as a result of the weird quantity of egg left in the fridge. ONE.

It was my first time making Chayote (Chokos) Egg-Drop Soup. However, I was over greedy - added too much vegetables (chayote, cabbage) in my soup and ended up in a stew-like soup. It does not have a lot of liquid (due to relatively more solid ingredients) to be a soupy soup AND does not have classic-stew-like (thick) consistency. ANYWAY, I could have jolly well added more stock or water to correct the mistake but that bowl was already quite a huge portion of food for two servings and if I have added more water or stock: it would have become a 4-serving soup (too much liquid!) and the taste might have been diluted (double whammy!).

Naturally, the soup was a half-flop due to the absence of egg-drop consistency which is supposed to be smooth and silky-like-texture of egg-drop. Fortunately, the other half-success was: I managed to create something quite delicious...

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Winter Melon Stew or Soup or Stir-fry, 冬瓜盅

My quest for melon and squash continues...


Winter Melon is considered "cooling"/Yin food - cooling and/or moistening for the body. Apart from Vitamins C, B1, B2, dietary fiber, calcium, it also contains a unique compound - tartronic acid, that neutralizes the food-carbohydrates in the body and prevent the carbo from turning into fats. Another vegetable/plant that contains tartronic acid is cucumber. As a result, there are people who consume cucumber as a form of dieting. This acid is destroyed under heat though, so by cooking these plants/vegetables, I reckon the "diet-effect" is gone. But you still get the other benefits. You can get Winter Melon from Asian grocery stores in the US such as 99 Ranch.

Love the snowy white flesh

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Bitter Melon Tomato Curry

Some say that it is a smart healthy move to incorporate AT LEAST ONE TOMATO in AT LEAST ONE DISH, EVERYDAY. So here comes. Not the usual bittergourd egg drop soup or bittergourd stir-fried with eggs or braised bittergourd but this bittergourd (bitter melon) with tomatoes inspired from Indian-Style Bitter Melon Curry. For me, an easy and delicious fresh new spin on familiar foods.

Tomatoes give this dish tangy flavors: so if tangy is what you love, I don't see why you don't enjoy this...unless you seriously dislike bitter melon. It is an acquired taste. I enjoyed bitter melon even when I was a kid (I must be one of those few). And somehow because of the tomatoes, the bitterness is subtly masked. I made this bitter melon dish the same way I made this okra, using some of my favorite spices.

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Steamed Hairy Gourd with Meat Stuffing - 毛瓜蒸肉馅

The last time I wrote about this prickly gourd was in 2007! WHAaat?! So long?! Does that mean I have not used this gourd for almost 3 years!? YESSssss, as I really cannot remember when was the last time I used it for my cooking. As I have said..."Fairy God Mother's magic wand *bling* will not turn a hairy gourd into a golden carriage for Cinderalla"  but YOU - the Hairy Gourd Mother (sorry, I said you are hairy) with your chopsticks (or wand) *bling bling* can always turn thy gourd from this:

to this:


Hairy gourd(毛瓜, Mao Gua) (you can read their other names here ) is sometimes known as the Little Winter Melon - 冬瓜 . I love them in soups, stir-fries and sometimes, steamed with meat stuffing. I do this steamed meat stuffing thing with bittergourd too and enjoy the dish very much. There goes this Hairy Gourd to Weekend Herb Blogging and this week, we have our host, Huan at Eat.Read.Live.

Steamed Hairy Gourd with Meat Stuffing - 毛瓜蒸肉馅
Ingredients: Hairy Gourd, peeled, cut into 3-cm chunks, remove seeds from the center of each chuck to create "hole" for meat stuffing; Minced Chicken/Pork; [Marinade]: salt, white pepper, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil; wolfberries for garnish

Directions: Prepare the hollowed gourd chucks on a plate. Marinate minced meat and spoon the minced meat into the hollowed chunks. You can allow about 20-30 mins marination time by leaving entire plate of prepared gourd chunks in the fridge. Set the wok or steamer for steaming. Steam for about 12 mins depending on how "thick" the meat stuffing is. (Note: You may have leftover minced meat - they can be used in Seaweed Soup or Watercress Soup).


Mom was asking what I cooked for Dad some time ago:
妈 : 煮什么?
我: 毛瓜, 南瓜, 丝瓜, 佛手瓜...
妈: 没有傻瓜啊 ?
我: 哈哈哈!

For my readers who do not read Mandarin - I was having a Mandarin conversation with Mom about the food I prepared for Dad. I spouted a list of gourds such as pumpkin, loofa, luffa, marrow squash, chayote - belonging to the gourd/squash family - gourd/squash , in Mandarin, is 瓜 (Gua).

She then said something which sets me laughing. She asked "how about 傻瓜 (Sha Gua)?"

傻瓜 (Sha Gua), in Mandarin, also ends with 瓜 (Gua) if you notice, and it means "A Fool" in English.

Tag: hairy gourd, gourd

Vegetarian recipes - of lettuce stems, hairy gourd, pumpkin

Happy New Year!

You have over-eaten during the holidays. I give you a marathon remedy of vegetarian dishes. No gluten (fake meat), no excess grease. Oops but there is egg in one dish!

Clockwise from top left: Stir fry leaves of lettuce stems, stir fry pumpkin, stir fry stem of lettuce stems with tofu slices, stir fry hairy gourd (毛瓜, MoGua) slices with eggs and basil.

Oh no no no...ok ok...just what are lettuce stems ? (I saw lettuce stems in Ranch99- an Asian supermarket in the USA). If I have said celtuce, would that have been better? Now I need to do more googling and binging. Or if you already know, drop me your comments.

Tag: lettuce stems, celtuce

Colors of bittergourd, weekend snapshot

Colors of bittergourd and , doesn't this just rhyme! :D

I know 80% (or more) of you, do not like bittergourd. And I'm sure a white bittergourd would not change your views, or even excite your appetite anytime now or later.

White bittergourd or a hybrid white pearl...

In my memory, I have always seen and eaten bittergourd which are green; and have braised or stir fry them, GREEN.

Green bittergourd

I have no idea why most bittergourds are white in Taiwan - perhaps white mean un-bitter? They wanna trick us!? :O For example, where papayas, mangoes, and bananas are concerned, GREEN means unripe - thus sour, or bitter.



Well, well, well...white bittergourd is no where, un-bitter. You just use the same tips and techniques to reduce the bitterness in white or green bittergourds, if you do not like them too bitter. To reduce bitterness, add some salt into water, and soak strips/pieces of bittergourd in the water(~5mins). The longer you soak, the less bitter it will be. Find tips on bittergourds, and bittergourd recipes here and here.

Don't start off your day feeling bitter, ok? It's Monday. Enjoy the week ahead.

Tag: bittergourd