WELCOME TO WINTER 2020 and a season when the Asian green grocery stores are stacked with ash gourd or winter melons and I got inspired to write a winter melon curry recipe.

Ash gourd, ash pumpkin, winter melon or as most Mangalureans call it ‘kuvalo’. Funnily, I used to be called as ‘kuvalo’ by my friends because my maiden name is “Coelho” and when translated into Konkani, it kind of comes out as ‘kuvalo’. In a way I liked to be associated as ‘kuvalo’ and I remember I used to give a smirky smile at my school friends when they used to refer me as ‘kuvalo’. Those were the days my friends, hold special memories and even the nuns who taught at my school used to pronounce my surname ‘Koo-veh-leeo’ not quite Coelho. It sounds like a totally different surname when I think of it now!

Anyway, back to ‘kuvalo’ now. This vegetable is unique to India, parts of South East Asia and China. It grows on a vine and a mature gourd is pale gray in colour, coated in distinctive white ash. Because of this ash, this gourd/melon is known as ash gourd. The flesh of the melon is thick, firm and white with many small seeds. It is interesting to note that although it is called a melon, the flesh is not sweet. When I was growing up, my mum used to store the matured melon for up to 12 months due to its long shelf life to be used during the monsoon months. It was secured tightly with a rope and hung from an exposed beam either in the kitchen or the store room.

In Australia, winter melon seeds are sown from mid spring to early summer (October to January) and the mature fruit is harvested only after 14 to 16 weeks of sowing seeds as the plant takes a long time to grow and produce fruit. I buy this vegetable throughout winter in Sydney.

When I arrived in Sydney, I went on a wild hunt for this vegetable and what I found closest to a kuvalo was a large round green gourd that looked almost like a watermelon but without any ash on it. On close examination, I noticed there to be really thin gray mist on the exterior with fine hair. No vegetable grocer in Sydney knew about ash gourd and in fact they looked quite amused when I asked them “is this vegetable ash gourd”? That was a huge disappointment as both my husband and me were dying to make kuvalo bafat curry. So, the two of us took a big plunge into buying this large round green vegetable that was called winter melon. Unfortunately, on that day we had to buy the whole gourd as all the cut pieces had been sold out. Oops! bad luck! my husband got the kuvalo bafat for the rest of the month! After that I never bought ash gourd for two whole years! Even now, if I put kuvalo on the shopping list, my poor husband will only buy a 500g piece of it, never to make that old mistake again! Ok guys, time to move on!

Ash gourd has virtually no taste of its own as it is very mild and so it is easy to incorporate into curries which we do in South India. In North India, it is also used for making a sweet called Petha, juices and salads however it is in my wish list to try some of these one day soon.