290227 Wed Sep 04 12:01:07 -0700 2002 7 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1574279 do bitter melons explode -- or did my cat do it? they were almost pretty, a cross between a nubby gourd and a zuccini, but i guessed they were no longer edible when the two bitter melons on my counter started turning from green to yellow. i had left them out (just a day before they started to turn!) to encourage myself to take that leap of faith and cook them. ok, i'd waited too long, but last night i finally googled on the topic. only now one of them appears to have exploded! is this an anomoly? and is the other one still ok? (does the yellow color indicate it's not good anymore?) the large seeds are a glistening red and there is hardly any flesh anymore that i can see in the "exploded" one -- possibly indicating over-ripeness... i guess i'll just restock, and buy a larger cache this time. i'd feel better if i had a good recipe though - preferably vegetarian. any tips to reduce the bitterness and on prefered varieties (e.g., indian, chinese, etc.), of course, would be appreciated too. all the best, eu Wed Sep 04 12:01:07 -0700 2002 0 epicure-us 1 1574293 I've had them go bad overnight as well. No "explosion" though. They are evidently very perishable. Saveur magazine published an article about bitter melon - including recipies- within the last two years. I'm not sure of the issue number though. Good luck and please post if you find a recipe source! Wed Sep 04 13:21:33 -0700 2002 1574279 0 LizR 1 1574324 If you can lay your hands on a copy of Madhur Jaffrey's World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking, I believe you'll find one or two recipes that involve bitter melon. Wed Sep 04 22:23:28 -0700 2002 1574279 0 C. Fox 1 1574326 You are soo funny! Anyway, I have bought a bitter melon just once and recently (basically because I had never heard of nor seen one before.) I put it in the refigerator with the other veggies and after one week moved it to eye level on an open shelf. I still didn't know what to do with it, but thought if I kept looking at it, something would happen to inspire me. It didn't. The seller had said just cook it like squash. Anyway, just wanted to say that it was in the fridge for a little over two weeks, so it can't be that perishable. Still interested, I just looked it up on the Internet. at http://www.sfc.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/spec_crop.exe/show_crop&ID=13 It mentions at other sites that it is an Inidan dish. That kind of explains a little of me finding it. I have an Indian student at my home. Anyway, Part of the website (above link and below) is quoted: "Immature fruits are light green, oblong, and pointed at the blossom end, and have white flesh. As the fruits begin to mature, their surface color gradually turns to yellow or orange. At maturity, fruits tend to split open, revealing orange flesh and a bright red placenta to which the seeds are attached." Uuuhhuh, maybe yours DID explode! Link: http://www.sfc.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/spec_crop.exe/show_crop&ID=13 Wed Sep 04 22:45:25 -0700 2002 1574279 0 kc girl 1 1574331 Hey EU -- Interesting science experiment, welcome to the world of chinese squash. Your bitter melon just got so overripe that it melted in the same way zucchini does if left out on a counter for a couple of days. The most favored and mildest bitter melons are the light green ones -- by the time they turn yellow they're so bitter that very few even bother cooking them up. Foo-gwa, as they're called in Cantonese, are highly valued for their medicinal value in the traditional Chinese diet. The element that makes them bitter is quinine (yes, the same quinine that Brits drank in their gin-and-tonics to fend off malaria). When shopping for them, my mother looks for nice fat ones with a sleek taper, the lighter green the better and shiny is good. There are two pretreatments I know of to reduce the bitterness. One way calls for blanching bitter melon pieces after you scoop out the seeds. This bath washes out some of the bitterness before you add it to your stir-fry. The other method is to treat it like an eggplant -- cut off ends, remove seeds, slice it up and salt liberally in a colander for awhile. The bitterness will run off in the liquid that the salt draws out. Wash off the salt and pat dry before adding the melon to the wok. I've used bitter melon in various stir-fries and find that it works best as a counterpoint to a rich meat, but I'm sure that you can probably google up a decent vegetarian recipe. Another traditional method is to stuff melon slices with a pork or seafood paste before steaming, with the added benefit of being a really cool looking dish. Soups are also pretty popular. Lemme know if you absolutely can't find any recipes and I'll try to come up with something that'll work for ya. Enjoy! Thu Sep 05 02:00:33 -0700 2002 1574279 0 Dennison 2 1574341 And after blanching it, like Dennison said, you can just toss the slices with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, and a pinch oy soy and pepper, for a Koream panchan. Thu Sep 05 09:45:29 -0700 2002 1574331 0 galleygirl 1 1574375 Bengalis (Bangladesh and eastern part of India) love to eat deep fried bitter melons as a snack or as an appetizer with their meals. Bengali Style "Uchhe Bhaja" (literally, "Fried Bitter Melons") - Slice them bitter melons up quite thin (1/4 inch) - Remove seeds from the slices. (they are woody and not particularly edible). - Deep fry them in medium-hot oil until they turn dark green to brownish. (3-5 minutes). You will need to experiment with the doneness until you find one you like. - Take them out of oil, and then sprinkle with salt. Have them as a snack by themselves or accompanied by rice-and-dal. The bitterness goes away significantly after they have been deep-fried. To remove even more bitterness, some people like to mix the slices with salt for 10 minutes, then drain them and dry them and then deep fry them. I dont bother. Thu Sep 05 16:14:11 -0700 2002 1574279 0 Joy 1 1574416 dim sum palaces have this dish where they slice up bitter mellon scoop out the seeds, and fill' the core with a shrimp mix before steaming. some (cantonese) chinese call it foo gwa (bitter melon), others leng gwa (cool melon) because it supposedly cools you internally. Fri Sep 06 03:46:30 -0700 2002 1574279 0 joe