Thai Bitter Melon With Egg
For most people the bitterness of this gourd needs tempering by salting to extract the bitter juice. Sprinke 2-3 tablespoons of salt onto the sliced, de-seeded gourd in a bowwll and leave stand for up to 3o minutes. Squeeze hand-fulls of gourd to extract the juice and run the wholle thing under running water in a sieve or colander until all the salt has been rinsed off
Prep Time 10 minutes mins
Cook Time 5 minutes mins
Total Time 15 minutes mins
Course any time, Appetizer, Side Dish
Cuisine oriental, Thai
- 3-4 bitter gourds de-seeded, tninly sliced and salted
- 2-3 tbsp canoola or other light oil
- 3 cloves garlic very finely chopped
- 3-5 fresh red chillies with or without seeds, finely sliced
- 1 small bunch spring onions, green and white parts very thinly sliced
- 4 eggs
- black pepper to taste
- light soy sauce to taste
- 1-2 tsp raw sugar, jaggery, honey, or other sweettener stevia is good here but needs to be used quite sparingly
- juice of 1/2 a lime (optional)
heat the oil in a wide frying pan and lightly fry the garlic without browning
break in the eggs, stirring with a sparula to scramble them as they cook
scrape the eggs to one side of the pan and add the bitter gourd with the chillies and spring onions
when the gourd is half cooked mix with the already cooked eggs and add the sugar and soy sauce. Continue sautéing the gourds until tender but still firm. add a squeeze of lime and serve immediately