HoW BiTteR CaN YoU GeT??

My family likes to eat vegetables. Actually almost all kinds of vegetables. From those that have sweet taste, plain taste, until the bitter ones. This time, another of my mother's recipe is made from bitter melon. Some people might not like the taste of it, BUT over that, bitter melon has been proven for its benefits to our health.

Bitter melon or bitter gourd is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown for edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all vegetables.

FYI, bitter melons have been used in various Asian traditional medicine systems for a long time. Like most bitter-tasting foods, bitter melon also stimulates digestion. This can be helpful in people with sluggish digestion, dyspepsia, and constipation. Although sometimes it can make heartburn and ulcers worse, but don't worry, it rarely does have these negative effects, based on clinical experience and traditional reports.

From the health side, bitter melon contains four very promising bioative compounds. These compounds activate a protein called AMPK, which is well known for regulating fuel metabolism and enabling glucose uptake, processes which are impaired in diabetics. SO, that's why consuming bitter melon is recommended as a way of managing adult-onset diabetes. ="D

Despite of all the benefits, you have to be cautious for some contra-benefits. The seeds are reported to be toxic to children. That's why it is very important to dispose the seed before it is cooked. And for you bloggers that are during pregnancy, it is not recommended.

Bitter melons are seldom mixed with other vegetables due to the strong bitter taste, although this can be moderated to some extent by salting and then washing the cut before use.

Bitter melon is often used in Chinese cooking for its bitter flavor, typically in stir fries (often with pork and douchi), soups, and also as tea. It is also a popular vegetable in the cuisines of South Asia and the West Indies. In these culinary traditions, it is often prepared with potatoes and served with yogurt on the side to offset the bitterness, or used in sabji. Bitter melon is stuffed with spices and then fried on oil, which is very popular in Punjabi Cuisine.

In Indonesia, bitter melon is prepared in various dishes, such as stir fry, cooked in coconut milk, or steamed. But this time, it is cooked with Tauco sauce. Tauco is Indonesia traditional sauce made from boiled soy bean, that then mashed and mixed with flour and fermented until it forms brown reddish color. There are two kinds of tauco, sweet and salty Tauco.

Spicy Bitter Melon with "Tauco" Sauce

Ingredients:
500 gr of bitter melon
4 cloves of red onions
2 cloves of garlic
4 red pepper
4 jalapeno/green pepper (less spicy)
2 table spoon of sweet Tauco
50 gr of small shrimp/prawn
2 tomatoes
1 tea spoon of salt
1/2 tea spoon of ground pepper
1 tea spoon of sugar
1/2 tea spoon of palm sugar

Preparations:
Peel off the bitter melon's skin and cut the bitter melon as you desire into slices. Dispose the seeds. You can cut it round like ring, or cut the ring in half. And then it is salted and squeezed until a bit soft. Rinse the soft cuts with cold water a few times, then leave them to dry. The salting and squeezing is done to reduce the bitterness.
Chop the red onions and garlic. Cut the red pepper ring, and the jalapeno in long slices. Cut the tomatoes into 6 parts.

How to cook:
1. Fry the onions in cooking oil. When the onions have turned a little pink in color, put in the red pepper and the jalapeno. When you can smell the spicy aroma from the pepper, add in the Tauco and the shrimp. After the shrimp has turned color into pink, put in the tomatoes and last the bitter melon.
2. Give the spices : salt, ground pepper, sugar and palm sugar. Mix them well and then taste it. You can give more spices as you desire.
3. Put the cooking in a nice tempting-appetite plate ~_^



Bitter melon's health informations by Wikipedia