In Chinese cuisine, "gwa" - usually translated as squash or melon - covers a wide variety of vegetables and fruits such as watermelon, fuzzy melon, winter melon, Chinese okra and bitter squash.

There are many more elaborate traditional recipes (in a flurry of culinary traditions from the Caribbean to China) for bitter melon, but I like to begin with the simplest: salting and soaking ...

Fuzzy melon (mo gwa in Cantonese) is also known as hairy melon or gourd. While it's popular in the summer because it's considered cooling, it's usually available year-round. It's delicious in ...