eglamkowski's Journal: recipe of the day

For those who like to try exotic fruits and vegetables, here's a recipe for Bitter Melon. Now, it's called bitter melon because.... it's bitter! Duh. But it's amazingly healthy stuff. You can find it at any chinese market. There are two varities I've seen - green and white. I always use the green, which is the most common anyways.

The recipe would have been "stuffed bitter melon", but when I was making it with my wife, she chopped up the melon and stir-fried the whole thing instead of baking like recipe calls for. It was good, so here is my wife's variant:

1/2 pound lean pork (or ground pork)
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (soaked and mashed)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 scallion, chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon sherry wine
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 tablespoons water
2 medium sized bitter melons

Mince the pork and combine with the remainder of the ingredients except the melons.

Cut the melons in half and scoop out the seeds. Slice thin. If you want it to be less bitter, try soaking the slices in water for 15 minutes.

Stir fry the pork mixture in a little bit of oil til the pork is cooked through, then add the melons and cook for a few minutes longer. Serve over white rice.

Lo Han Quo, be careful

[SolemnDragon]

It's called momordica, or lo han quo, i think. The part that i'm sure about is that bitter melon has been shown in studies to lower blood sugar and up immune response. Not significantly, but somewhat. Which is good news if you're diabetic, bd news if you're hypoglycemic, but possibly something to avoid in either case, because there's no reason to fiddle with something that can cause a known but unquantified reaction when you otherwise have your blood sugar under control. Most quoted is the Indian Study, bu [ijp-online.com]