Pork rib soup in a carved winter melon

Sometimes just a tiny bit of work can give you something really spectacular for the dinner table. Case in point: soup inside a carved winter melon.

It used to be that you could only buy enormous winter melons. But recently a smaller variety has been showing up with delicious regularity in Chinese markets, and they are the perfect size for home meals. 

They are also fantastic for another reason: since they haven’t been cut up, they remain fresh and delicious for a very long time.

I adore winter melon. It has an unusual, almost spicy aroma, and it is one of the most versatile vegetables in creation. Hot or cold, savory or (yes!) sweet, this is a true chameleon.

You’re probably thinking, ‘Sweet?’ Well, yes indeedy. Winter melon is transformed into candy, sweet drinks, and extenders for sticky fillings, such as pineapple, which might otherwise be too cloying without the moistness and comparative blandness that grated winter melon can supply.

Be that as it may, winter melon is mainly beloved for its role in soups, in braises, and as a blank canvas for things like this delectably refreshing appetizer. But the one incarnation that always delighted me the most was when it arrived on a banquet table, all carved up into fancy designs, and acting as both the bowl and the vegetable for a delicious soup.

Now that I can lay my hands on these cute little melons, I’ve been enjoying them even more, since dinnertime gets turned into a special occasion when this soup is the centerpiece.

Pork rib soup in a carved winter melon

Páigŭ dōngguā zhōng 排骨冬瓜盅

Zhejiang

Serves 4

Pork and marinade:

Around 1 pound | 500 g pork riblets (half a side of ribs, the bones cut into 1 inch | 2 cm pieces)

¼ cup | 60 ml regular soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

1 cup | 250 ml peanut or vegetable oil

Soup:

1 quart | 1 liter unsalted stock or water, divided

1 cup | 250 ml Shaoxing rice wine

2 inches | 5 cm fresh ginger, sliced

Rock sugar to taste

1 tablespoon homemade mushroom seasoning, or salt or soy sauce to taste
Ice cubes, as needed

1 small winter melon (about 3 pounds | 1.5 kg)

1. Cut between the bones to separate the riblets. Pat them dry and place them in a resealable bag or container. Toss them with the soy sauce and rice wine, and then marinate for at least a couple of hours and up to 5 days. Drain the riblets and pat dry.

2. Set a wok or frying pan over medium-high heat and add the oil. Slide in half of the riblets and fry until golden. Remove the riblets and then repeat with the other half.

3. Bring the stock (or water) and rice wine to a full boil in a medium saucepan. Add the ginger and the fried ribs, bring the pan once more to a full boil, and then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook the ribs until very tender, adding more stock or water as needed to keep the ribs covered. Remove the pan from the heat and cool. Add ice cubes to the soup, and then skim off and discard the congealed fat and leftover ice cubes.

4. While the stock is simmering, carve the winter melon (see Tips below), cut off the top to make a lid, and scrape out the seeds and membrane. Set the winter melon in a heatproof bowl and set the melon lid in the steamer, too, but without covering the melon, so that the heat easily penetrates the inside of the melon. (If you are going to serve this at a fancy dinner, though, replace the lid on the melon, as this will help keep the shape of both parts.) Steam the winter melon until it is tender but still holds it shape, at least 1 hour. Cool the melon until it is relatively easy to handle, and then pour out any liquid in it.

5. Now, before you go any further, practice removing that bowl from the steamer. Remember that it will be hot and heavy when it comes time to remove it, so figure that in, as well. The bowl should have a good lip on it, so that you can use a strong canning lifter to get a grip on it. The other alternative is to set the bowl on a small heatproof plate. But whatever you use, make sure there are a couple of inches | centimeters all the way around the bowl and optional plate so that you can safely grab them without dropping them back into the pot. It's a big mess when that happens, and yes, I'm speaking from experience.

6. Bring the ribs and broth to a full boil. Put enough of the ribs in the cooked winter melon so that the lid can still be placed on top of the melon, and then add the broth almost to the top of the melon bowl. Cover the melon with its lid, and then steam it for around 15 minutes to completely heat through the melon. Serve hot. Add more hot broth and ribs as needed, and toward the end of the meal, scrape out the melon flesh and serve with more of the broth.

Tips on carving

Wash the winter melon and pat dry. Use a paring knife to sketch out your pattern.

To cut the pattern, use either a paring knife, specialty carving tools, or (my favorite) a channel knife as shown in the second photo, as this makes the carving especially easy to control.

Once you have the melon decorated to your satisfaction, use a zigzag pattern to cut off the lid (see photo on the right). 

The membrane will be connected to the lid and therefore secure the lid down onto the melon, so carefully pry the lid off as much as you can, and then slip your paring knife in there to slash off the membrane. The seeds and membrane are pretty easy to remove after that.

Set the winter melon in a heatproof bowl that fits easily into your steamer. 

Make sure that there is plenty of clearance around the melon so that the heat circulates well, and also so that you can lift out your bowl without too much trouble. A wide, deep pot with a trivet or even a pasta insert work well.

Zhejiang's ham and winter melon soup

We came home yesterday to a cold house and were hungry to boot. Nothing would have suited us better than a steaming bowl of soup, and in about 30 minutes that's what we had.

This is not a fancy soup - although it can easily be used as one if poured into pretty bowls or a nice tureen - but rather a balanced combination of just a few ingredients that play off of each other well, and most of these ingredients can be kept on hand for a very long time, making this a great go-to dish when time and money is tight.

About the only item that needs to be fresh is the slice of winter melon. These enormous squashes are available most of the year in Chinese markets, and you might even be able to snag a smallish whole winter melon that will keep for weeks, if not months, in a cool, dry area, like the garage, basement, or pantry.

Once it is sliced, though, winter melons deteriorate rapidly, and so these should be used up within a couple days of purchase. I discussed their selection a couple months ago, so just suffice it to say that you should steam any fresh, cut winter melon that you don't plan to use it right away, since that will extend its usability for a couple of more days.

This recipe calls for a slice of winter melon without any more details because Chinese markets just hack them up into irregular pieces, and you get what you get. So, cut up as much of that slice of winter melon as it takes to get about 2 cups of cubed melon, and keep the rest for something else. Or, just add more to the soup; it's your call.

Stir-fry the mushrooms and ham for flavor

Now we get to talk about the most exotic ingredient here: Chinese-style ham. This is nothing at all like what we think of as the ham that is served with eggs or at Easter dinner, since that is moist and cured in brine. 

Chinese hams are dry cured and very salty, and the closest thing this side of the Pacific would be country ham or Smithfield ham. In fact, true Chinese hams are as hard to find around here as talking frogs, so Chinese markets almost always will offer slices of these American substitutes in the meat department. (Be sure and keep any of this ham covered in plastic and stored in the refrigerator, and save any of the rind and bones that might come with the ham for soups such as this. Black mold might form on the skin and white mold on the meat after a few months, but these can usually be scrubbed off; just use your nose and common sense to determine whether any ham you've stored for a while should be eaten or given the heave-ho.)

Raw winter melon is an opaque white...

The most famous of the Chinese versions are the Jinhua hams of Zhejiang and Yunnan's Xuanwei hams. But, since you are probably not going to see them any time soon around here, we'll just settle for our local country hams and still consider ourselves lucky, for these have a divine smoky flavor and nice saltiness. The following is a recipe that hails from the East China province of Zhejiang, which is of course home to all of that lovely Jinhua ham and so often features this local delicacy in its remarkable dishes.

This soup is a classic and does justice to a good piece of ham since it doesn't have to jostle with other flavors for supremacy. It is a clear, even cheerful soup that you can serve with pride to guests as well as family. And if you want to turn this into a main dish, just toss a skein or two of cellophane (mung bean) noodles into the pot and let them simmer until just barely soft.

I have added fresh shiitake mushrooms to the traditional recipe for two reasons: they increase the richness of the broth by adding another level of meaty flavor, and the cooked slices have an untuous, almost fatty texture that really complements the soft winter melon and harder ham.  Use dried mushrooms or even another variety of fresh mushroom if that is what you have in your kitchen. This recipe can be easily multiplied for more people or to make extra for another day.

... and when done is a translucent pale yellow

As usual, I made this soup in my trusty old sand pot, which is an unglazed clay casserole. This is one of my favorite utensils for cooking in because it looks downright gorgeous, it is very versatile, and it saves me the hassle of washing out a wok and a serving bowl by doubling as both. You can find good sand pots in many Chinese grocery and hardware stores. Get a size that fits your household (a small to medium one for one or two people, a big one for more family members), and check it all over for chips or cracks. The store should offer to fill it with water before they ring it up so that you can be assured that there are no cracks. (These are almost never returnable, so be sure to ask for this test.) Scrub the pot carefully, both inside and out, when you get home with a mild soap and a brush, and then rinse it carefully. Dry it in a warm place (a turned off oven is good) so that it doesn't mold, and then store it in a dry place.

Never soak this pot in the sink or wash it in the dishwasher. Just wash it gently and dry it off. If the pot cracks, chances are that whatever you are cooking will seal up the crack on its own, and you will be no the wiser. That is another reason why you should never soak it or trust it to the dishwasher. My old sand pot has a crack that runs almost all the way across the diameter, and so far so good. Just keep an eye on it, and if it looks like it might crumble, just toss it in the garbage with only slightly a heavy heart (or use it as a flower pot if you are really cheap), since they are inexpensive and you can easily find yourself another one.

Chinese ham and winter melon soup 
Huotui donggua tang  火腿冬瓜湯  
Zhejiang

Serves 6 to 8 as part of a multicourse meal

1-inch finger of ginger
2 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms
A small piece of country ham (see above), about 1 inch by 2 inches
Any skin or bones from your country ham
A slice of fresh winter melon
¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine
4 cups boiling filtered water
Freshly ground black pepper
Cilantro for garnish

1. Cut the unpeeled ginger into very thin slices. Clean the mushrooms, remove the stems, and cut the caps into thick slices. Rinse off the ham, skin, and bones, pat them dry, and trim the ham into very thin slices. Peel and seed the winter melon, and then cut it into 1-inch cubes; you should have around 2 cups, but just about any amount close to that will do.

Zhejiang's finest

2. Heat the oil in a sand pot or wok over medium-high heat and add the ginger. Fry the ginger until it turns brown and toasty, at which point it will have flavored the oil. 

3. Add the mushrooms and ham (and any skin and bones from the ham you might have) to the oil and stir-fry until the mushrooms are browned on the edges. Toss in the winter melon and stir-fry it quickly for a few seconds before pouring the rice wine over everything. 

4. Let the wine bubble for about 10 seconds, and then add the boiling water. Bring the soup to a boil, cover, and lower the heat to medium-low so that you have a nice simmer going. 

5. At this point the winter melon will be a white opaque hue, but when it is done, it will turn translucent and slightly yellow; don't cook it much more past this point, as then it will lose its texture and turn mushy. Check it after around 15 minutes and then every 5 minutes after that, removing the soup from the heat as soon as the winter melon is cooked to a perfect state of doneness.

6. Fish out the bones and skin; I like to remove as much of the ham as possible from the bone at this point at return it to the soup since the meat is so nice and soft that this can be done with a chopstick. Grind the fresh pepper over the soup and sprinkle it with chopped cilantro for color and a zippy bit of freshness. Serve the soup boiling hot.

Today's koan: when is pork not pork?

When I served this dish to a vegetarian friend from Nanjing, he had exactly the same response as you probably did to the photo on the left: "Wow," he said, "that sure looks like pork." 

I smiled at his apparent nervousness and said, "Now, do you think I would do that to you?" Dr. Li peered closely at the dish before a big grin broke out over his face. "Su Dongpo!" he exclaimed.

Those of you who are fans of Chinese poetry may be wondering why he called out the name of one of the greatest poets of all time. This returns us to a favorite topic of mine from a little while back: the Chinese sense of humor, particularly when it concerns food. It also recalls another dish we looked at, Dongpo Pork.  And it also seems quite in character with my pronounced love for pig meat. Like a good mystery movie, all these disparate threads will come together in the end...

Part of the fun of the best Chinese meals is the element of surprise, of humor, of twisted expectations. This dish does that in spades. In this instance, you serve your guests, preferably vegetarians or vegans, with what appears to be a huge hunk of pig flesh and wait for their reaction. And then you either do as I did and wait for a sophisticated guest to guess the truth, or soothe them by revealing the actual ingredients, or carry the deception further by insisting that they at least try a taste... it all depends upon your guests and their ability to wield heavy cutlery. 

The fried "skin"

What we have here, then, is actually a piece of winter melon (which is actually a squash rather than a melon; more on that later) done up as red-cooked pork belly. 

Yup. That is just a vegetable, folks. But since it looks very much like Dongpo Pork, it's called Su (fourth tone) Dongpo, since su means "vegetarian," a play on the poet's name, Su (first tone) Dongpo.

The genius of this Jiangsu-style dish lies in the ability of winter melon to take on all the attributes of a good piece of pork. Look at that skin on the right, just after it's been fried: that looks just like lovely, crispy pork fat. The "skin" is scored just as pork fat usually is, which carries the deception even further. Finally, the winter melon is braised in a wine- and spice- infused sauce that drenches the very bland squash with a buttery, savory flavor that mimics that of pork. It's no wonder that this culinary trick fools just about everyone. As Mr. Li noted after a few considered bites, the recipe here is only slightly sweet, as is favored in Nanjing, but you can add more sugar if you like and have it in the style of Shanghai; both are equally good.

Winter melon, or donggua, is in season now, and it can range in size from a basketball to the heft and length of one of the pods out from the 1978 remake of The Body Snatchers. The tendency of winter melon to grow to breathtaking sizes is why this vegetable is usually sold in chunks. 

Remove just the green part

Chinese markets carry winter melon during most of the year, as it has a thick skin and so can be stored whole much like its other thick-skinned brethren, gourds and pumpkins. So why is it called a melon if it isn't sweet? For the same reason that other Chinese squash, like bitter melons, got weird translations: gua in Chinese is used for both melons and squashes. Somebody long ago just tacked "melon" on the end of its new English name and, voila, here we are today.

A word of caution when it comes to winter melons. Make sure that the slice you buy is really fresh. It should be completely white all over with no yellow or soft spots on the white flesh, which tell you quite insistently that it has been sitting around for a while. Smell it, as it should have just a faint squash smell and no sourness. Press it gently through the plastic wrap to ensure that it is firm. Finally, cook it as soon as you get home, since it doesn't improve by sitting around and in fact will deteriorate rapidly, turning soft with decaying juices spilling all over your fridge as it devolves into mush. Fortunately, this vegetable is terrific in any number of dishes, particularly soups with some Chinese ham and ginger, as well as this, the divine Su Dongpo.

Braise the squash in the sauce

Vegetarian roast pork belly 
Su Dongpo  素東坡
Jiangsu, Zhejiang

Serves 4 

1 pound piece of winter melon, as flat and square as possible
1/2 cup fresh vegetable or peanut oil
1 finger fresh ginger, thinly sliced
2 green onions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine
1/4 cup good-quality regular soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar or rock sugar
2 star anise
1/2 stick cinnamon or canela
1/4 cup filtered water

1. Scrape off any seeds and fibers in the winter melon, trim the edges so that they are even and white, and cut off the rind with a heavy knife or cleaver; just trim off the green skin, and don't go too deeply into the flesh, as you want the slightly hard area under the green part. Then, score that skin side of the winter melon in a crosshatch pattern in lines about 1/2 inch apart and 1/2 inch deep. Wipe the squash dry with a paper towel so that it doesn't splatter when you fry it. 

2. Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high heat until it starts to shimmer; a wooden chopstick inserted into the oil should immediately be covered with bubbles. Carefully lay the winter melon skin-side down in the hot oil. Fry just the one side of the winter melon until it is an even brown color as shown above. Remove the winter melon to a small plate and drain out all but 1/4 cup of the oil in the wok.

3. Heat the oil again over medium-high heat and add the ginger and green onions; stir-fry them until they are nice and fragrant, then toss in the rest of the ingredients. Bring the sauce to a boil and add the winter melon to the wok, this time skin-side up. 

Vegetable becomes "meat"

4. Reduce the heat to low and slowly simmer the winter melon for about an hour, turning it gently and only two times while it is cooking. At this point you should be able to insert a wooden chopstick into the center very easily; cook a little bit longer, if needed, but try not to add more water unless most of the liquid has evaporated. Once the winter melon is tender, cook it slowly for another 15 minutes so that it becomes deliciously soft, loses its squash flavor, and soaks up the sauce. 

5. You may serve it immediately by using two spatulas to carefully transfer the very tender winter melon to a plate. Strain the sauce, and if it is not yet syrupy, boil it over high heat until it's thick and glossy. Pour it around the winter melon and serve to your unsuspecting guests. 

6. If you want to make this ahead of time, let both the winter melon and strained sauce come to room temperature, place them in a container, and store covered in the refrigerator; steam the winter melon for about 10 minutes until it is completely heated through before serving.