I bought 2lbs of bittermelon at the grocery because it was on sale. I figured I would just stir fry it with some fermented beans, garlic, chili oil, and soy. Have you cooked with it before and what did you make? The old cashier lady said she doesn't like it but it's really healhy. Gonna increase my vitality.
I did something similar. It lives up to its name and is bitter as hell. I tried various methods that are supposed to knock that down a bit and none of them worked. Would suggest you start with a small amount and see if it's palatable to you at all.
>>21108415Bitter melon is used in one of my all time favourite dishes, pinakbet. Besides that I've seen it mixed with scrambled eggs, which is all right.
I haven't had it in a while because my wife and kid don't like it but I either do it in an egg curry or simply stir fried with onion and scrambled egg. Didn't bother with the salting -> boiling water bath -> draining -> rinsing thing. I used to do that and I find that it, against all common advice, seems to make it MORE bitter rather than less. I just chop it and that's it. My nanny used to hollow it out as a whole melon and stuff it with pork, rice and beaten egg and steam it but I've never done it myself
I wonder if neckbeard-san is still hereOld /ck/ is truly dead
>>21108773I don't get it
>>21108787anon is preemptively congratulating himself for having a sophisticated palate
>>21108789oh... haha...
Wow it's fucking bitter guys. I cut it in half length wise, hollowed out the seeds/white gunk, then sliced. Also did a bit of daikon and eggplant as extra veg.stir fried in wok, w/ onion and garlic, just a little LKK black bean sauce, oyster, soy for minimal seasoning >>21108557>>21108438definitely trying with eggs next, kind of want to try somthing really strong to counterbalance the bitter like black crab paste or some kinda fish thing isk>>21108436it's not palatable at all, I'm not giving up yet though
>>21108808They're also fucking gross
>>21108415ビターメロン
>>21108959I'm guessing there are exceptions but as far as I know you're kinda supposed to blanch them first, takes a lot of the bitterness out but still adds an interesting flavor in stir-fries
>>21108787>to be fair you have to have a very high IQ to understand bitter melon
>>21108415Yes, add them in scrambled eggs, make sure to slice them thin, rub salt to draw out that bitter shit, wash it to rinse of the salt, saute then add eggs
>>21108438yeah. I like it in pinakbet and ampalaya as well
>>21109420>>21108438Tried looking it up, all the recipies are different...
>>21108787its just a bunch of really bitter/flavor-killing ingredients mixed together and that anon thinks himself superior for 'liking' and consuming that slop.I'd not feed this to starving africans children on cause that I have at least a tiny shred of humaity left in my cold black shriveled heart
>>21108988Don't do that. As I mentioned in >>21108557, that's what I used to do but it seems to actually make it more bitter rather than less so now, I just don't bother anymore. >>21108959Egg curry might be your best bet. It's an egg-thickened savoury custard built on onion, tomato and bitter melon. I forgot to mention pork and bitter melon soup. It's pork minced, chopped onion and bitter melon cooked in the pork's own rendered lard, topped up with pork stock. As with most bitter melon dishes, it's served with rice. Since you mention fishiness, there used to be a cafe near me that did bitter melon with egg, chicken and saltfish. I liked it because it was good and very, very cheap. HK-style cafes are known for being super cheap but bitter melon dishes are always exceptionally affordable.
>>21108415Looks like a cucumber with phimosis and herpes.
>>21109558Wypipo friend of mine was over as I was cooking one for myself back in college and he called it "pox melon" and "Bowser's thorny cock."
>>21108959>wow this food is absolutely disgusting>let me try again but this time it will be different I'm sureyou're insane
>>21109669Sometimes, people don't like the preparation. I detest everyone's turkey but mine. I don't know what they're doing different from what I'm doing but my turkey is delicious and theirs is poopshits. I don't like roasted vegetables. Stir fried, braised or even boiled are preferred. Everyone's cranberry sauce is too goddamn sweet.Etc etc etcDoing it just a little different can make your appreciate an ingredient you otherwise wouldn't unless it's passionfruit. That stuff tastes like sour booty. Total ass.
>>21108415They eat it in West Africa. I don't know why because nobody actually likes it but they still do
>>21109685>They eat it in West AfricaDo they, though? I just googled that and couldn't find a single reference. What's it called in Yoruba or Igbo or Fula/Fulani/Fufulde (can't tell the difference between these, really) or Wolof?
>>21109705it's a passportless flyover, they don't know what any of those words are
>>21108557>>21109540That doesn't make sense but ok, surely that one experience overrules very common cooking practices
>>21109783Try it for yourself and see. Split one in half, as per normal, scoop it and do the salt scrub and water thing on one half but not the other and cook them separately. That's what I did. I did that because bitterness can vary melon to melon.
>>21109798Your taste buds are fucked
>>21109890My taste buds are not your mother and therefore not habitually, perpetually and currently being fucked. >yer mum's a ho, m8
This stuff is practically famine food. Why continue eating it?
>>21110122because it tastes good
>>21109669If I gave up that easy I'd have the pallet of a spoiled toddler and the cooking skills of my mom. Also would probably have given up on this website and missed all the cool suggestions anons added here
>>21109669This is genuinely one of the saddest mindsets you can possibly have about food. Often if you don't like something it's only because it was prepared wrong the first time, or maybe you don't like that particular preparation. Hell, maybe you were just in a bad mood that day.My ex-girlfriend was like this, she would refuse to try certain foods like mussels or olives because she'd had them once and didn't like them. Often when I did force her to try them again, she actually admitted they're quite nice. But somehow something never twigged in her head that she was prematurely shunning foods based on one bad experience.
>>21110122I want to impress old women
Tried again with leftovers. Eggs were a good call. I don't really understand how they make it so much better. Always thought eggs to be fairly neutral and wouldn't do anything. Egg, black crab paste, fermented salt baby shrimp, shrimp shrimp, fish sauce, chili, lime, garlic, cilantro, green onion. Still bitter, but it doesn't over power and rotates nice with the other strong flavors. Gonna skip to this one next time.
bitter melon is ironically one of those things that dont taste good until you gstop tasting the bitterness through just repeated exposure.
>>21108959punishment chow lel
Scrape off as much of the white center as you can with a spoon, that's the most bitter part. Ripe dark greens are less bitter than younger light greens. Make thin cuts and only put a quarter or less of the amount of the total ingredients. Don't overcook and try to add it last so the bitterness doesn't seep into the rest of the food. Sweet vegetables like tomato or pumpkin also counters the bitterness
>>21112770>Ripe dark greens are less bitter than younger light greensThis is true of neither variety of bitter melon I'm familiar with. Chinese bitter melon is always light green and turns light orange as it ripens. Indian, the one in OP, is dark green and turns dark orange as it ripens. Neither turns lighter green. And in both cases, tradition says that its bitterness only grows as it ripens, not lessens.What sort of bitter melons are you using that turn light green and less bitter the riper they get? Are there any others?
>>21108415You can slice and batter them and make nice fritters out of these bitter melonsIt takes a bit of the bitterness away and it's a nice crisy treat to eat
>>21112787It's overripe when they're yellow or orange. The stage where they're the least bitter is before that when the skin is in their darkest green.
>>21108415You should make the weeb bittermelon dish
>>21112862You must be talking about Indian ones because my neighbours grow Chinese bitter melons and they're a pallid shade of green the entire time until they start to ripen when they start going orange. At no point do they go dark green. As for Indian ones, idk. Never seen them growing. I only see them at supermarkets where they're always dark green.
It's typically paired with heavy pork, chashu, djoubanijiang.The nepalese pickle it, also part of indonesan gado-gado.Myself I'll do Chinese, but I usually do it in soups. with meatballs. as an accompaniment for pork I cook it quiet slowly by itself first.if you just pile everything in the wok it won't be hot enough, the mellon won't cook, it will be bitter
>>21108415>Have you cooked with it before and what did you make?these grew on vines on the fence of my elementary school and had the gnarliest fucking smell when they got ripe. we used to taste them raw and it was like putting your tongue on a battery.
>>21114149There's a Korean market near my place where I can get this stuff. I've got some pork cut for stirfry and some black bean & garlic sauce, so sounds like I'll have to experiment here.
