What is this vegetable?!
Answers: My Chinese flatmate is cooking some kind of vegetable but I have not seen her to find out what it is. It is creamy in colour and looks spikey. She soaked it over night and is now simmering it. Anybody got any ideas what it could be? Thank you
Bittergourd (bitter melon or in Indian, karela), she soaked it to reduce the bitterness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_melo...
Gordon Brown.
It could be a breadfruit. The breadfruit is a large vegetable, which has green spiky skin and is normally boiled in preparation for eating.
I know that this is cooked commonly in the Caribbean, and i think it is eaten in Asia too.
Squid?
There is a type of soy bean product called "fu zhu", which in dried form is brittle and spiky at the ends. It looks like big pieces of cream-coloured ribbon. It needs to be soaked to soften it before cooking, either as a dish or dessert. Could this be what your roommate is cooking?
Why not just ask your flatmate??