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Recipes with bitter melon

3 recipes that use bitter melon, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Pinakbet, takes 35 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, spring onion and asian aubergine.

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Canh khổ qua nhồi thịt (stuffed bitter melon soup)

Southern families serve this soup on the first days of Tết because khổ qua sounds like 'the hardship has passed'. Short lengths of bitter melon are hollowed out, packed with seasoned minced pork, wood ear mushroom and mung bean vermicelli, and simmered until the green skins turn soft and the pork is juicy. The broth is clear and gently bitter, a welcome counterpoint to sweet braised dishes. A vegetarian stuffing of crumbled tofu and mushrooms works the same way. Chef's tip: scrape out all the white pith along with the seeds and blanch the melon briefly; leaving the pith in is what makes the soup aggressively bitter.

60 minVietnameseSoupsGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

SiomaySteamed fish dumplings with peanut sauce

Siomay travelled from Bandung to Jakarta on the backs of bicycles: the vendors' tall aluminium steamers still clank through housing estates and park outside offices in Kuningan at lunch. Inside sit dumplings of mackerel and tapioca, stuffed tofu, cabbage rolls, potato, bitter melon and eggs, all kept hot over steam, then snipped into pieces with scissors and buried under a thick, garlicky peanut sauce with kecap manis and lime. The fish dumplings are soft but springy. Contains fish, peanuts, soy, egg and wheat (in the wrappers and kecap). Chef's tip: keep the fish and the bowl cold while you mix; warm fish paste goes mushy and won't hold its bounce.

75 minIndonesianFish
by KrazyBadal 0 views

PinakbetMixed vegetable stew

Pinakbet comes from the Ilocos region in the far north-west of Luzon, where families cook whatever grows behind the house: bitter melon, small aubergines, okra, yard-long beans and tomatoes, simmered with very little water until the vegetables shrink and wrinkle (the name comes from the Ilocano for 'shrivelled'). Ilocanos season it with fermented fish paste; here white miso gives the same savoury, salty depth without any fish, and a little squash (more common in the Tagalog version) adds sweetness. It is an everyday lunch dish, eaten with rice and often a spoonful of extra miso on the side. Chef's tip: choose small, firm bitter melon and don't scrape out every bit of the pith; a little bitterness is the point.

35 minFilipinoVegetarianVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with bitter melon