I walked into my favorite breakfast place and this sign hit me. Fall is here already. It’s time now to celebrate the arrival of those funny and fun looking vegetables–melon, squash, pumpkin. And oh my gourd, some are just weird.
When I went to the Chinese supermarket, I decided to look for Asian squash. Here are some.
Asian squash
The five above are Chinese gourds, and also popular in Asia. From top they are:
–hairy melon, hairy gourd or mao gua. I’ll post a recipe for this soon.
–long squash, opo or bottle squash or chang gua;
–bittergourd, bitter melon, or ku gua. Sorry, I can’t eat the bitter stuff though many people love it.
–luffa, angled gourd si gua, and
–Taiwan luffa, si gua.
Each of them can be used in stir fry. They are usually peeled and then cut in slices. Except for bittergourd, the others are also popular in soups and sometimes stuffed with pork and steamed.
Western squash
And here are the squash that I found in our local markets in Fairfax, Virginia:
–From top, the first is spaghetti squash, which is tender and sweet and quite amazing. It is usually cooked whole and then cut open. The pulp when spooned out looks like strands–hence spaghetti squash.
–The second photo has two: delicata squash, with the beautiful green stripes, and sweet potato squash, which looks like a pale pumpkin.
–The last photo is acorn squash.
