Fuzzy Melon (Mo Qua)
If you come across a fuzzy melon, also sold as “Mo Qua†at Asian grocery shops please don’t hesitate to pick it up. This fuzzy looking vegetable with green mottled skin has sweet tasting white flesh, and cream colored seeds that are typical of gourds and squashes. It has almost ridge gourd like flavor, and a pleasant, thirst-quenching type of taste. Delicious raw and assimilates enthusiastically with other ingredients when cooked, it’s my kind of vegetable.
I have been trying out different recipes with fuzzy melon since last December. Here is a recipe I liked very much. It’s chutney, made in a classic south-Indian style.
Fuzzy melon, onion, green chillies are skillet-roasted first and then together with tamarind and salt are blended into chutney. Just another ordinary preparation, but together with the other four ingredients, fuzzy melon delivers an applause-worthy performance on taste buds.
Red Onion, Mo Qua, Green Chillies and Tamarind
Recipe:
- Fuzzy melon: Firm, fresh looking vegetable, about 4 to 6 inches in size. Wash, peel the skin and cut into big chunks. about 2 cups.
- Red onion or shallots – cut to big chunks, about a cup
- 4 to 6 – Indian or Thai styled green chillies
- Marble ball sized tamarind – soak in quarter cup of water.
(To soften, so that it can blend well.) - ¼ teaspoon – salt
- 1 tablespoon – peanut oil
In an iron skillet, add and heat peanut oil to smoking point. Add the onion, green chillies and fuzzy melon. Keep the heat on medium-high, and saute the vegetables to tender brown. Turn off the heat, and wait for the skillet contents to cool down to room temperature. (This waiting process is essential, makes a difference in how the chutney tastes.)
Add the skillet contents to a blender or in mortar. Add tamarind and the water it soaked in, also salt. Blend to fine. Remove to a cup and serve fresh. Makes a great side dish for any kind of grain based meal.
Chutney Ingredients ~ Skillet Roasted
Mo Qua Chutney with Couscous-Vegetable Upma, and an Orange ~ Meal Today
-Indira