Bitter melons & golden sand

The last time we were in Shanghai a couple of years ago, it seemed like every cook in the city was terribly excited about a “golden sand” version of, well, just about everything possible. We got a bit exhausted from having this way too often, but now that some time has passed, my love for this lovely and delicious sauce has been rekindled. (BTW, the illustration on the left is from my upcoming book with McSweeney's and Ten Speed Press: ALL UNDER HEAVEN.)

Golden sand is nothing less than the yolks of Brined Eggs that are mashed and then stir-fried into a buttery sauce. Some of the things we had with the golden sand were less than stellar – combined with shellfish, for example, it’s an overkill of fatty, salty flavors (sort of like crab with drawn butter, at least to my taste) – but when it’s used as a visual and textural and flavorful contrast to the main ingredient, the result can be inspired.

Young bitter melons

My favorite rendition was when it was matched up with bitter melons. Everything was exactly right in this combination: the beautiful jade color of the vegetable against the amber crumbles of salted egg yolk, the crunchy melon sliding on the creamy sauce, and the slightly bitter and yet slightly sweet flavors mingling with the salty and, yes, really buttery aromas from the golden sand made this a winning trifecta.

The bitter melons are cut into thin batons, blanched, quickly cooled down, and only then tossed in the sauce. This serves to leach out most of the bitterness and essentially cook the melon very rapidly, which preserves its exquisite color and crispness.

Bitter melons in golden sand 
Jīnshā kŭguā 金沙苦瓜 

Shanghai
Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

2 medium bitter melons

Boiling water

6 yolks from Brined Eggs, or store-bought

2 cloves garlic, peeled and trimmed

1 green onion, trimmed

¼ cup fresh peanut or vegetable oil

2 to 3 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons sea salt

1. Wash and dry the bitter melons and trim off both ends, as well as any damaged areas. Cut the melons lengthwise in half and scoop out both the seeds and any pith. Cut the melon halves crosswise into 2-inch or so lengths, and then slice these pieces lengthwise into thin (¼ inch) strips.

Boiling up the "golden sand"

2. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan and blanch the bitter melons for less than 1 minute, or until they turn bright green and taste barely cooked. Rinse the bitter melons with cool tap water in a colander set in the sink, and then drain thoroughly.

3. Use a fork to mash the yolks. Finely chop the garlic and green onion.

4. Pour the oil into a wok and heat it over medium-high until it starts shimmer. Add the mashed egg yolks, garlic, and onion, and stir-fry them until the sauce foams up; add the sugar and salt. Toss in the well-drained bitter melon and mix it quickly to heat the vegetables through. Taste and adjust seasoning. Pour the melons onto a serving plate and scrape all of the sauce out of the wok on top of them. Serve while still very hot.

If jade were a vegetable

Tips

Bitter melons aren’t really melons... they’re a type of squash. The problem lies in the translation, because the name in Chinese for both melons and squash is guā 瓜.

You can get a good sense of how weird these names are when you consider that a watermelon is called a “western gua” (xīguā 西瓜), and a pumpkin is referred to as a “southern gua” (nánguā 南瓜). Why? Beats me. One is sweet, the other not so much. Watermelons may have traveled from Central Asia into China, which definitely is to the west, but the pumpkin originates in the Americas, which is nowhere south of China. 

I give up.

A general rule is, the lighter the green of the bitter melon, the less bitter it is. For this dish, a pale green is recommended, unless you enjoy more astringent flavors.

Bitter melons are in season from the warm days of summer up until the first frosts of fall. Select ones that are heavy for their size, and try to avoid any with bruises, as these vegetables spoil easily.

Store the melons in the fridge, preferably with a piece of paper towel around them to soak up any moisture, since they are prone to rot. Use them up within a day or two, if at all possible.

This recipe is for brined chicken eggs. If you are using duck or goose yolks, be sure and adjust the amount accordingly. Also, these latter two kinds of eggs tend to have a gamy or fishy flavor. To combat this, cut each yolk in half, sprinkle them with a bit of white liquor or rice wine, and steam them for about 5 minutes. Cool the yolks before mashing.

Illustration from the forthcoming All Under Heaven (McSweeney's + Ten Speed Press, 2016)

Copyright (c) 2015, Carolyn Phillips

All Rights Reserved - Do Not Reproduce

Bitter melon turns nutty & even more delicious

I am sure that by now my proselytizing of the Gospel of the Bitter Melon has become about as welcome as finding a Jehovah's Witness permanently planted on your doorstep. 

I know. I understand. But wait: just one more recipe and story, and I'll stop talking about bitter melons. (Besides, the season is about over, so it's not like I'm being especially big about this.)

Today's dish turns the bitter melon on its head, making it nutty and flavorful with the minimum of ingredients and fuss. 

I wasn't expecting much the first time I had this at a Taipei restaurant many years ago. The reasons were simple:

The sole main ingredient

First, I never had been too crazy about bitter melon. Just about every cooked bitter melon dish I had tried up to that point had been stewed or fried the vegetable to death so that it was both mushy and still bitter, a deadly combination.

Second, I never got past the first point.

True, raw bitter melon entranced me from the moment we first met. It was true love. And even today I wait for late autumn for many seasonal ingredients, but for none with more anticipation than the lovely pale fruits that surface for a few short weeks and allow me to make my beloved Hunan-style Hidden Dragon Bitter Melon Appetizer.

Fried in one layer

Someone brilliant, though, devised today's intensely simple dish that doesn't even need to be seasoned, especially if it is being served with a sauce-draped entree that will offer opportunities for occasional dips into other flavors.

Dry-fried bitter melon also is remarkable in that the seeds stay inside the gorgeous jade green slices, offering a nutty textural contrast that is stunning beyond description. The seeds toast up in the thin sheen of oil that is busy cooking the flesh, and they end up not only eminently edible, but also incredibly delicious.

I love these so much the way they are that I don’t even need to salt them unless they are being served in all their glory. In that case, a restrained sprinkle would set off their aromas like nothing else.

Dry-fried bitter melon 
Gānbiān kŭguā 乾煸苦瓜 
Sichuan

Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

2 pale green bitter melons between 10 and 12 inches in length

Peanut or vegetable oil

Sea salt, optional

Smoky & nutty

1. Rinse the bitter melons and trim off both ends, as well as any bruises. Cut the melons crosswise into ½-inch slices.

2. Heat a flat skillet over medium-high until it starts to smoke, and then drizzle in a tablespoon or so of the oil to just barely slick the surface. Put in only as many melon slices as will barely cover the bottom of the skillet. Fry the slices until they are browned and speckled, and then turn them over to cook the other side. Remove to a serving plate and repeat with the rest of the bitter melon slices until they are all cooked. Serve hot, with or without a sprinkle of salt. 

Golden sand & bitter melons

The last time we were in Shanghai a couple of years ago, it seemed like every cook in the city was terribly excited about a “golden sand” version of, well, just about everything possible. We got a bit exhausted from having this way too often, but now that some time has passed, my love for this lovely and delicious sauce has been rekindled.

Golden sand is nothing less than the yolks of Brined Eggs that are mashed and then stir-fried into a buttery sauce. Some of the things we had with the golden sand were less than stellar – combined with shellfish, for example, it’s an overkill of fatty, salty flavors (sort of like crab with drawn butter, at least to my taste) – but when it’s used as a visual and textural and flavorful contrast to the main ingredient, the result can be inspired.

Shanghai memories

My favorite rendition was when it was matched up with bitter melons. Everything was exactly right in this combination: the beautiful jade color of the vegetable against the amber crumbles of salted egg yolk, the crunchy melon sliding on the creamy sauce, and the slightly bitter and yet slightly sweet flavors mingling with the salty and, yes, really buttery aromas from the golden sand made this a winning trifecta.

The bitter melons are cut into thin batons, blanched, quickly cooled down, and only then tossed in the sauce. This serves to leach out most of the bitterness and essentially cook the melon very rapidly, which preserves its exquisite color and crispness.

Bitter melons in golden sand 
Jīnshā kŭguā 金沙苦瓜 

Shanghai
Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

2 medium bitter melons

Boiling water

6 yolks from Brined Eggs, or storebought

2 cloves garlic, peeled and trimmed

1 green onion, trimmed

¼ cup fresh peanut or vegetable oil

2 to 3 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons sea salt

The raw & the cooked

1. Wash and dry the bitter melons and trim off both ends, as well as any damaged areas. Cut the melons lengthwise in half and scoop out both the seeds and any pith. Cut the melon halves crosswise into 2-inch or so lengths, and then slice these pieces lengthwise into thin (¼ inch) strips.

2. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan and blanch the bitter melons for less than 1 minute, or until they turn bright green and taste barely cooked. Rinse the bitter melons with cool tap water in a colander set in the sink, and then drain thoroughly.

3. Use a fork to mash the yolks. Finely chop the garlic and green onion.

4. Pour the oil into a wok and heat it over medium-high until it starts shimmer. Add the mashed egg yolks, garlic, and onion, and stir-fry them until the sauce foams up; add the sugar and salt. Toss in the well-drained bitter melon and mix it quickly to heat the vegetables through. Taste and adjust seasoning. Pour the melons onto a serving plate and scrape all of the sauce out of the wok on top of them. Serve while still very hot.

Foaming salted yolks

Tips

Bitter melons aren’t really melons… they’re a type of squash. The problem lies in the translation, because the name in Chinese for both melons and squash is gua 瓜. 

You can get a good sense of how weird these names are when you consider that a watermelon is called a “western gua” (xigua 西瓜), and a pumpkin is referred to as a “southern gua” (nangua 南瓜). Why? Beats me. One is sweet, the other not so much. Watermelons may have traveled from Central Asia into China, which definitely is to the west, but the pumpkin originates in the Americas, which is nowhere south of China. I give up.

A general rule is, the lighter the green of the bitter melon, the less bitter it is. For this dish, a pale green is recommended, unless you enjoy more astringent flavors.

One beautiful vegetable

Bitter melons are in season during the fall before the first frost. Select ones that are heavy for their size, and try to avoid any with bruises, as these vegetables spoil easily.

Store the melons in the fridge, preferably with a piece of paper towel around them to soak up any moisture, since they are prone to rot. Use them up within a day or two, if at all possible.

This recipe is for brined chicken eggs. If you are using duck or goose yolks, be sure and adjust the amount accordingly. Also, these latter two kinds of eggs tend to have a gamy or fishy flavor. To combat this, cut each yolk in half, sprinkle them with a bit of white liquor or rice wine, and steam them for about 5 minutes. Cool the yolks before mashing.

Hidden dragon bitter melon -- cool and super good

Bitter melon has a very bad rap. It's considered one exceedingly icky vegetable by most Chinese kids because it can be very astringent. A lot of this has to do with the tender taste buds that sit around in kids' mouths, waiting for nothing stronger than a slice of pizza or a Coke to deal with. So there's that.

But things like bitter melon are not meant for children. Astringency is an acquired taste. Bitterness is for adults. Face it: Campari, lemon peels, eggplant, a pint of Guinness... I don't know of too many parents who sit their kids down to a meal with those sorts of things on the plate.

So save this for your adult friends, folks who like unusual flavors and who are willing to try something that has "bitter" in the title.

Mature, pale bitter melon

The really good news here is that when you select the right bitter melon, it will not be that harsh at all. In fact, it will display nothing but the slightest sharp edge if you play your cards right, and it might even be one of those things that you end up dreaming about, waiting for late fall to arrive so that you can finally eat this dish again.

Because this is definitely seasonal. Instead of the relatively thin, bright green, and definitely astringent ones that hang around Chinese supermarkets most of the year, these expect you to wait until the last warm days of autumn when a chill is in the air, the only time these beauties called "white jade" (baiyu) bitter melon ever show up.

This is, I believe, a variety that was developed in Taiwan, and once in a while you can find them here in the States. They are very large -- about 3 inches wide -- and about a foot long, and if you see one, grab it. I've been on the lookout for them for a while now, and the closest I can find are some very pale green ones that are also quite mild and almost as good as the white jade melons.

These are absolutely ideal raw in a Hunan appetizer that I have adored ever since I set aside my prejudices and gingerly nibbled on a slice. This was done at the enthusiastic urging of my museum director, who always knew his way around the menu of any of China's grand cuisines. Dr. Ho was from the eastern seaboard near Nanjing, but he was a master at enjoying Hunan's greatest foods, too.

This dish inevitably started out our Hunan banquets, and I soon was glomming onto the plate with intense pleasure. It's not at all hard to understand, either, because this dish is a complex mix of textures and also has ALL of the main flavors: bitter, salty, tart, sweet, spicy, umami, and even a bit of funk. Let me break it down for you...

Brilliant red-garbed seeds

The subtle bitterness comes from the melon, of course, but everything else is found in the sauce, where saltiness shows up in the fermented black beans and soy sauce, the tartness is provided by the vinegar, sugar supplies the sweetness, hot chilies and ginger spark the mix, umami (or xian) is there courtesy of the black beans and soy sauce, and the funk shows up in the cilantro and garlic. It's magic.

When you cut open your first mature bitter melon, you might be in for a delicious surprise: the ripe, hard seeds will be wrapped in velvety red coverings. Most people toss the seeds out, but taste those little red socks first because they are wonderfully sweet and soft. I like to peel them off of the tough brown seeds (keeping them for planting next year, if the melon is particularly good) and add them to the dip.

What I've done here is have a bit of fun with the dish, turning it into a coiling dragon. Its name, of course, is from the Chinese hit movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Wohu canglong), which just about everyone has seen and loved. But few understand what the title means: this is a Chinese idiom that describes people with hidden talents, such as the elegant young lady played by Zhang Ziyi who was studying the black arts.

Try this dish replete with your own little dragon. Chinese friends may soon be muttering that you are a crouching tiger, too.


Hidden dragon bitter melon appetizer 
Canglong liangban baiyu kugua 藏龍涼拌白玉苦瓜
Hunan
Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer

Dragon:
1 large, pale bitter melon (about a pound or so)
I red jalapeno pepper

Sauce:
¼ cup toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon peeled, finely chopped ginger
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons fermented black beans (douchi), finely chopped
1 tablespoon regular soy sauce
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ tablespoon rice or apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 green onion, trimmed and finely sliced into rings
A few sprigs of cilantro, finely chopped

The seed inside the sock

1. Start this early in the day or up to a day in advance of when you want to serve it. Wash and pat dry the bitter melon. Trim off the stem end, cut the melon in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds and pith. If there are red coverings on the seeds, remove them and set this red pulp aside; discard the seeds and pith.

2. Slice the melon into thin, deeply diagonal pieces, and arrange them in a coil on your serving plate, leaving room in the center for your dipping sauce.  Cut two long slivers out of the pepper to form the dragon's horns and a two dots to make the eyes. Place these on the coiled melon on a piece that looks like face (the blossom end is best). Cover the plate and chill. (The bitter melon should be very cold when you serve it, which also cuts down on the bitterness. You can add the flesh of the rest of the jalapeno to the sauce, if you like.)

3. Heat the oil in a wok over high and add the ginger, garlic, jalapeno pepper, and black beans. Stir for just a few seconds just to remove the harsh rawness of the aromatics, and then add the soy sauce, vinegars, and sugar; remove from the heat and then taste and adjust the seasoning. Toss in the red pulp, if you like, and chill the sauce. Just before serving, stir in the green onion and cilantro.


Tips

Refreshing & very retro

If you have room for a garden, plant those seeds when the ground is warm and all frost is past. Bitter melons make the most beautiful vines you've ever seen, with brilliant green leaves, bright yellow flowers, and of course the knobby, jadelike melons.

Chinese bitter melons have soft warty bumps all over them, while Indian ones have sharp spines and look like sea slugs. Go for the Chinese ones.

Bitter melons self destruct in a matter of days, dissolving into mush. So, buy them just before you want to eat them.