Bitter Melon with Black Bean Sauce

Bitter melon, a type of squash, is one of my favourite Chinese vegetables. True, it has a bitter quinine taste which even many Chinese do not like, but then many Westerners do not like caviar. In China, it is used in its unripe stage, when it is light green and bumpy. There are many ways to prepare it — my mother had a dozen recipes — but the most usual is to cut it up and stir-fry, as in this classic southern Chinese recipe. Look for the riper, softer orange-coloured melons, which tend to