Winter melon ✦

Courge cireuse

What it is

It is a summer fruit named for winter: the white waxy bloom on its skin seals it so well that an uncut melon keeps for months in a cool room, which is when it was traditionally eaten. In Cantonese banquet cooking the melon is the pot — hollowed, carved and steamed with the broth inside it, then carried to the table whole.

In the kitchen

Cut it into thick cubes and give them twenty to thirty minutes in a strong stock; it has no flavour of its own, so undercooked it is merely wet, while properly cooked it turns glassy and carries everything around it. Peel past the pale green layer down to the white — the green stays fibrous however long you cook.

Goes with

Jinhua ham Conpoy Chicken Ginger Goji berry Dried shrimp

In season alongside

Brousse du Rove Chayote Cucumber Fresh walnut Grayling Junsai

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