Vicky Bhogal

I am inspired by the recent sunshine hinting of summer sunsets to come, the tropical spiciness of Matthew Williamson printed fabrics I keep seeing posters of on London buses and that sharp nip still punctuating the air. So I am going for:

CANTALOUPE MELON. GINGER. BLACK PEPPER.

Having posted the competition on the Guardian and Observer Word of Mouth Blog too, it was a delight to receive your recipe entries, both on the blog itself and as emailed across. Very many thanks! I thoroughly enjoyed the recipes, and my kitchen was adorned with those ingredients in different guises for days. Well, that and a Ben Nevis of washing up…

The aim of the competition was to see how people take the three flavours as an initial building block, and add other flavours and ingredients around them to support the unique dish they choose to create.

I found the recipe submissions inspiring and the thought processes behind them fascinating. Loved reading how you have explored your ideas and curiosity: from wondering ‘what would happen if I tried…?, to ‘I wonder if the following would work...?, and the recipes this has led to. Such intriguing cooking adventures and imaginative twists and turns and adaptations!

This, to me, is what is really exciting about food. All the possibilities and combinations based upon the relationship between flavours. I still marvel over how this has happened in previous times and led to delicious dishes which we now take for granted. Most modern Indian dishes, for example, would not exist had the tomatoes, coriander and chillies from New Mexico not been introduced to Calcutta by the Portuguese in the 1600s and combined with the Indian broths. I love how there was no segregation of ingredients, but a mixed marriage was blessed instead.

The winner
Although there are so many recipes that deserve merit, there can unfortunately only be one winner, so I felt it had to be Ian Fischer’s entry, for being the first to suggest frying melon, which I felt was both innovative and worked well. I liked his experimental approach in utilising the melon. When I tried it, as per my recipe above, I found cooked melon quite a revelation, but I personally like it when it has just the briefest of cooking time – so it is hot, but not too soft.

So here is Ian’s entry…
He originally suggested the following musing of a recipe, which prompted some comments as to why one would consider frying melon, but was supported by other comments that cooking cucumber is surprisingly good, so it might work with melon too…

Slice melon into sticks and stir fry with finely chopped root ginger and a red chili and a few asparagus spears. Maybe throw in some form of basil leaf. Season with salt and pepper. I have no idea what this fried melon would be like, but it would probably hold it's shape and texture being fried hot and fast. Serve with noodles.

Then this was the full submitted recipe…
cantaloupe cut into sticks - about 1cm square by 3-5 cm long
minced root ginger - about a good teaspoon full
sunflower oil
3 spring onion - finely sliced or cut into think strips
1 red chili - with out without seeds depending on how spicy you like it - finely chopped
bunch of asparagus spears
bunch of green beans - the thin ones - just topped and tailed and steeped in boiling water for 5 minutes to soften
splash of light soy sauce
black pepper
few basil leaves - torn
heat oil in wok
add ginger, spring onion and chili, stir once then add melon, asparagus and beans , stir and fry until the asparagus is cooked and slightly charred. remove from heat. season with soy, black pepper and the basil leaves, stir again and serve with noodles.

One thought as an alternative:
Take the melon, asparagus and beans, coat in tempura batter - flour, egg, sparkling water. Deep fry and serve with dipping sauces - sweet chili, garlic, ginger and soy, etc.

CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT I MADE

As per my approach of customising recipes to ones own unique preferences, tastes and ingredients to-hand, I also enjoyed adapting some recipes further.

Here are a few examples:
With Aenn’s fruit salad, I use a selection of melon types with the masala and a tiny bit of fresh lemon
Saltycdogg’s recipes got me thinking about perhaps a cantaloupe and stem ginger jelly spiked with black pepper and with small pieces of sponge in it, topped with white chocolate mousse.

I wrapped Parma ham around fine asparagus, brushing the exposed asparagus with olive oil and then roasted them in the oven until the ham was crisp. Then served these on top of very thin (carpaccio-thin) slices of the melon and drizzled the whole thing with a dressing made from the syrup in a jar of stem ginger, piri piri bottled chilli and black pepper.

When re-cooking Catlilys delicious curry recipe, this time I doubled the amount of grated ginger and chilli (using finely chopped red chilli), ground the allspice berries down further to disperse their flavour further throughout the sauce, added a few generous pinches of ground ginger and 2 tsp of fish sauce.
When adding the coconut milk, I gently brought it to the boil, then added a block of paneer cut into the same size chunks as the melon, and simmered for 10 mins. I then added the melon chunks, lime juice and some chopped mint, stirred once, and then let simmer very gently for a few mins just to heat through and then serve straight away with plain basmati rice...

A mouthwatering stir fry was made by dusting chunks of chicken in a mixture of cornflour, black pepper and sea salt and then fried in vegetable oil until golden and then left to drain on kitchen paper. Meanwhile, sesame oil was heated in a wok, to which grated ginger and chopped spring onion was added and fried very briskly, then adding coarsely ground black pepper, the chicken, a good dash of dark soy sauce and rice vinegar, and stir frying to reheat the chicken. Diced melon and torn basil leaves were added, stir fried for 1 minute, then served immediately with soba noodles...

A variation of Karahi Chicken was enjoyed, made by heating a little oil in a pan to which grated ginger and crushed garlic was added, frying until golden, then adding a finely chopped green chilli, cracked black pepper, a little turmeric, garam masala, strips of chicken, matchstick-thin pieces of fresh ginger and thin slices of green pepper and onion, stir frying rapidly. A little salt, lime, a chopped tomato and a few torn sprigs of fresh coriander were added just before the end of cooking.

This was served with a melon yoghurt raita. A wedge of melon was grated, squeezed to extract the liquid, and then the flesh combined with creamy natural yoghurt and topped with some pan-roasted cumin. All was scooped up with hot roti but you could use naan, flatbread or pitta instead.