Spiny gourd

Yesterday I spotted this nameless vegetable in a store.

Other veggies have their name on the price tag, but this only has “vegetable” written on it.

I pressed down on it slightly, and the spines seemed hard.

Today I used Google Lens on the photo, and found out that this is called a spiny gourd. I looked it up and found this article with an introduction to the vegetable, including recipes.

Both cooks in the videos say that the seeds remain crunchy after cooking, and that this is what's special about this vegetable. This makes me regret not buying it…I could have tried cooking it. Just like how the guy in the first video says: "If you see an unknown vegetable, buy it and find out online how to cook it. Then you and your family can try a new vegetable." Though I can't exactly do that because what if the vegetable turns out to be too difficult/troublesome to cook? Even in this case, I wouldn’t have all those spices in my pantry…so I might have to switch the flavour a bit.

The thing that surprises me the most is that the skin is edible. I didn’t press down very hard on it at the store, but it felt a bit too hard to be eaten… I guess it softens after cooking.