Do you grow bitter melons, and do you have any favorite recipes? I only grew one plant - Shanghai variety - and got so many that I gave a bunch away! However, they did not like heat. Just like many of my tomatoes, they totally stopped in that intense heat, when it got into the high 90s. I got a few more when it cooled off a little, but not many, so I will try another variety, as many say they grow well in heat.
Any good pickle recipes using these? I figure that's one way I could preserve a bunch at once.
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pepperhead212
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- Posts: 2879
- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
- Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b
Unusual, bitter melon grows well in the tropics and in the Philippines which regularly gets very hot and humid in summer.
I prefer the long Chinese bittter melon. They are not as bitter as the short wild ones. The wild ones though are just that. The birds drop the seeds and they are weeds in my yard and garden.
the small ones are much more bitter.
The leaves as well as the fruit can be eatern.
I prefer them stuffed and steamed Chinese style.
https://dailycookingquest.com/by-categor ... bean-sauce
Filipinos use them in pinakbet (vegetable stew)
https://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/09/09/fi ... og-recipe/
https://www.filipinofoodrecipes.org/gini ... lon-recipe
https://allrecipes.com/recipe/178090/min ... elon-soup/
https://www.tarladalal.com/recipes-using ... -gourd-214
https://www.kawalingpinoy.com/2015/08/gi ... th-tinapa/
I prefer the long Chinese bittter melon. They are not as bitter as the short wild ones. The wild ones though are just that. The birds drop the seeds and they are weeds in my yard and garden.
the small ones are much more bitter.
The leaves as well as the fruit can be eatern.
I prefer them stuffed and steamed Chinese style.
https://dailycookingquest.com/by-categor ... bean-sauce
Filipinos use them in pinakbet (vegetable stew)
https://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/09/09/fi ... og-recipe/
https://www.filipinofoodrecipes.org/gini ... lon-recipe
https://allrecipes.com/recipe/178090/min ... elon-soup/
https://www.tarladalal.com/recipes-using ... -gourd-214
https://www.kawalingpinoy.com/2015/08/gi ... th-tinapa/
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pepperhead212
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- Posts: 2879
- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
- Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b
Bitter melon = bitter gourd, depending on where you are. I grew one of the Chinese type, which has smoother lumps on it, and is less bitter, but is probably why it stopped when it got hot - it is from the north. I'll have to try another variety. I put it a number of Indian curries, and a couple of Thai curries, all mixed with other vegetables.
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pepperhead212
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- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
- Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b
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Gary350
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- Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.
I LOVE India food. I wish I had some good recipes written in English. I have trouble with recipes that tells me everything in English except the the names of spices, vegetables, metal and other items. What is SCAP? The very hard to find spices cost $10 for 1/2 teaspoon.
Every India restaurant I go to is $10 to $14 for lunch and $18 to $20 for dinner. Sorry but that is out of my price range for every day lunch. I will do prices like that about once a year. We have traveled all over the USA and never found an India restaurant less than $10 for lunch. Lunches are always Buffet so I get 1 lunch in a to-go box wife and I split it we both get more food than we can eat for $10. Not all restaurants allow to-go boxes for Buffet.
Every India restaurant I go to is $10 to $14 for lunch and $18 to $20 for dinner. Sorry but that is out of my price range for every day lunch. I will do prices like that about once a year. We have traveled all over the USA and never found an India restaurant less than $10 for lunch. Lunches are always Buffet so I get 1 lunch in a to-go box wife and I split it we both get more food than we can eat for $10. Not all restaurants allow to-go boxes for Buffet.
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pepperhead212
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- Posts: 2879
- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
- Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b
I have no clue as to what SCAP is! I have never seen that ingredient, or food in any of my Indian cookbooks. And I don't know what spices could be that expensive - even saffron, the wordl's most expensive spice, isn't that expensive. The commonly used spices are very cheap, especially in an Indian grocery. Green Cardamom is one of the more expensive ones, but still under a dollar an ounce online, and even cheaper in the groceries. Here's the best online source that I have found for those that can't find a local Indian grocer. https://store.patelbros.com/spices/
I didn't used to be fond of Indian food, mainly because most of what I had in restaurants had that raw cinnamon flavor in it, and the store-bought garam masala and other spice mixes also had that flavor. I don't like savory dishes that taste like they have pumpkin pie spice added to them! And some of the most popular Indian cookbooks just called for store bought masalas, or simply gave a recipe using all raw spices. Eventually, I discovered some recipes for garam masala in which all of the spices were toasted, and the flavor was incredible! What made me look into Indian food again was that I started growing a curry tree, to get curry leaves for Malaysian cooking. The first really good CB I got was How To Cook Indian, by Sanjeev Kapoor, in which he has a large number of masalas in the beginning, and almost all of them have the spices toasted. Another (from which I learned the trick of pre-heating the pan to toast the spices, so that they take about the same time every time) very good book, with even more delicious masala recipes, as well as many other recipes, is 660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer. And the third of my trio I use the most is 1,000 Indian Recipes, by Neelam Batra. I would have never bought the latter book, if it weren't for a friend's advice, since a lot of books with a similar name are simply a bunch of recipes that really aren't worth looking at, but this one is loaded with fantastic recipes, and a lot of types of recipes I didn't see in the others. The masala recipes all make 1 1/2 c, which is a little much, but I just cut them in half, depending on how much and how often I will be using it.
All of these books call for a lot of unusual ingredients, which intimidates some people, and many of the recipes have over 20 ingredients! But it is incredible how fast you can throw something together, once you get used to doing it. Making the masalas - the spice mixes - takes the longest, but you have them done in advance. It's like the curry pastes for Thai food.
A show that I saw on PBS that got me into cooking this more was Healthful Indian Flavors with Alamelu. It shows you how to set up the recipes well, and the recipes are Southern Indian style, which is my favorite, with more spiciness, and coconut. You can see them on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... DDC854E3D9
I didn't used to be fond of Indian food, mainly because most of what I had in restaurants had that raw cinnamon flavor in it, and the store-bought garam masala and other spice mixes also had that flavor. I don't like savory dishes that taste like they have pumpkin pie spice added to them! And some of the most popular Indian cookbooks just called for store bought masalas, or simply gave a recipe using all raw spices. Eventually, I discovered some recipes for garam masala in which all of the spices were toasted, and the flavor was incredible! What made me look into Indian food again was that I started growing a curry tree, to get curry leaves for Malaysian cooking. The first really good CB I got was How To Cook Indian, by Sanjeev Kapoor, in which he has a large number of masalas in the beginning, and almost all of them have the spices toasted. Another (from which I learned the trick of pre-heating the pan to toast the spices, so that they take about the same time every time) very good book, with even more delicious masala recipes, as well as many other recipes, is 660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer. And the third of my trio I use the most is 1,000 Indian Recipes, by Neelam Batra. I would have never bought the latter book, if it weren't for a friend's advice, since a lot of books with a similar name are simply a bunch of recipes that really aren't worth looking at, but this one is loaded with fantastic recipes, and a lot of types of recipes I didn't see in the others. The masala recipes all make 1 1/2 c, which is a little much, but I just cut them in half, depending on how much and how often I will be using it.
All of these books call for a lot of unusual ingredients, which intimidates some people, and many of the recipes have over 20 ingredients! But it is incredible how fast you can throw something together, once you get used to doing it. Making the masalas - the spice mixes - takes the longest, but you have them done in advance. It's like the curry pastes for Thai food.
A show that I saw on PBS that got me into cooking this more was Healthful Indian Flavors with Alamelu. It shows you how to set up the recipes well, and the recipes are Southern Indian style, which is my favorite, with more spiciness, and coconut. You can see them on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... DDC854E3D9