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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Bitter but good for you

by

20120928

Carail­li, al­so known as car­i­ley, bit­ter mel­on or bit­ter gourd is a veg­etable that is wide­ly avail­able at our mar­kets, yet seems to be un­der­utilised by many. Pre­sum­able be­cause of its bit­ter prop­er­ties and its knob­by, knarly out­side tex­ture. It's a won­der­ful veg­etable to get to know bet­ter, and there is not ground­break­ing sci­ence re­quired to cook it. Tra­di­tion­al­ly it is known to have a very bit­ter taste but at times the de­gree of bit­ter­ness is less in some. Many cooks like to cut it open, re­move the seeds, (which tend to be very hard), slice it thin­ly and gen­er­ous­ly sprin­kle with salt. The carail­li is then left for about 30 min­utes, and then squeezed thor­ough­ly to re­move all the bit­ter juices. Rinse well and it is ready to be cooked. How­ev­er I have found that salt­ing is not al­ways nec­es­sary when prepar­ing this de­light­ful veg­etable, sim­ply re­move the seeds, slice thin­ly and saut&ea­cute; with lots of onions and gar­lic for a quick ac­com­pa­ni­ment to any In­di­an or cre­ole meal. With re­spect to health ben­e­fits some claim it is a good aid in help­ing to con­trol di­a­betes, but it is al­so a great source of vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als.

Sauteed carail­li (Bit­ter mel­on)

1 lb carail­li, cut in­to 1/2 inch pieces. Seeds re­moved

4 onions, sliced

1 toma­to, chopped

2 pi­men­to pep­pers, chopped

6 cloves gar­lic, chopped

2 tbs veg­etable oil

1/2 hot pep­per, op­tion­al

Salt carail­li. Leave for about 20 min­utes then squeeze and rinse un­der cool wa­ter (op­tion­al).

Heat oil in saut&ea­cute; pan, add onions, pep­per and gar­lic, saut&ea­cute; un­til fra­grant, add carail­li and hot pep­per if us­ing.

Cov­er and cook, adding on­ly a small amount of wa­ter to pre­vent stick­ing.

Cook un­til ten­der about 15 min­utes.

Serves 4

Shrimp stuffed carail­li with co­conut milk and lemon­grass

4 large carail­li

1 lb shrimp, minced

4 tbs veg­etable oil

1 tsp ground roast­ed cumin (geera)

1 cup co­conut milk

3 tbs cur­ry pow­der

4 cloves gar­lic

2 onions

2 tbs chopped chadon beni

1 hot pep­per seed­ed

salt to taste

2 stalks lemon grass, chopped

Slit carail­li length­ways, re­move seeds, do not cut in half or let knife go right through.

Place gar­lic, onion, pep­per and chadon beni in a blender or food proces­sor and process to a fine con­sis­ten­cy.

Bring a pot of wa­ter to a boil, drop in carail­li and cook for five min­utes, re­move and drain.

Heat one tbs oil in a saut&ea­cute; pan, add one tbs ground gar­lic and onion mix­ture, add cumin, cook un­til fra­grant, add shrimp and cook for five min­utes. Re­move and sea­son to taste with salt.

Stuff the carail­li with the shrimp mix­ture, tie to­geth­er with kitchen twine and se­cure well, set aside.

Heat the re­main­ing oil in a saut&ea­cute; pan, add the lemon­grass, and bal­ance of the gar­lic, onion mix­ture, add garam masala and cur­ry pow­der, pour on co­conut milk and sim­mer for 5 min­utes, then add carail­li and cov­er and sim­mer for 10 min­utes.

Slice and serve as a side dish with oth­er cur­ried dish­es.

Serves 6 to 8

Asians love carail­li too

On the Amer­i­can food web­site Se­ri­ous Eats, food writer Chi Chi Wang has writ­ten about the place of the bit­ter mel­on in Asian cook­ing.

She writes, "Many Asian culi­nary tra­di­tions, em­brace bit­ter mel­on.

The Chi­nese, In­di­an, In­done­sian, Thai, Viet­namese, Fil­ipino, and so forth, counter the bit­ter­ness of the fruit with spicy, sweet, or sa­vory com­po­nents.

"In In­done­sia, bit­ter mel­on is used in sal­ads, stir-fried, cooked in co­conut milk, or steamed. The Viet­namese stuff the mel­on with ground pork for use in steamed dish­es or soup. Thai cooks com­bine pow­er­ful birds eye chilies with the mel­on, us­ing gen­er­ous splash­es of fish sauce as well. In Chi­na, cooks of­ten stir-fry slices of the mel­on with pun­gent fer­ment­ed black beans and ground pork, adding dried red chilies to taste."

Here's a carail­li recipe by Wang, that can be found on the Se­ri­ous Eats site.

Stir-fried carail­li with ground pork, fer­ment­ed black beans and fish sauce

Two carail­li, prefer­able riper and slight­ly yel­low

For the ground pork mix­ture:

1/2 tea­spoon gin­ger, minced

3 ounces ground pork

1 tea­spoon rice wine

1/2 tea­spoon sug­ar

1/4 tea­spoon salt

For the sauce:

2 cloves gar­lic, grat­ed with a

mi­croplane grater

3 ta­ble­spoons black beans, smashed

3 dried red chilies, or to taste

2 ta­ble­spoons fish sauce

1 ta­ble­spoon rice wine

1/2 tea­spoon salt, or to taste

1 ta­ble­spoon sug­ar

For the corn­starch mix­ture:

1/4 cup wa­ter mixed with

2 tea­spoons corn­starch

5 ta­ble­spoons oil, for stir-fry­ing

Halve carail­li length­wise and scoop out all the seeds. Cut them in­to 1/4-inch thick slices and set aside.

Mix the ground pork with the rest of the in­gre­di­ents in the mix­ture and set aside in a bowl.

Mix all the in­gre­di­ents for the sauce in a bowl and set aside. Com­bine the wa­ter and corn­starch in an­oth­er small bowl and set aside.

Heat the wok over high heat again. Add the rest of the oil and the slices of bit­ter mel­on to the wok.

Stir-fry over high heat for 5 to 7 min­utes, un­til the mel­on is con­sid­er­ably soft­ened but still a bit crisp. Add the sauce mix­ture and mix with the mel­on, stir-fry­ing for an ad­di­tion­al minute.

Turn off the heat and add the corn­starch mix­ture to the wok.

Stir around rapid­ly to pre­vent the corn­starch from clump­ing.

Add a few ta­ble­spoons more wa­ter to the wok if need­ed to thin out the sauce.

Turn the heat on to low and sim­mer the mix­ture for 20 sec­onds.

Rein­tro­duce the pork mix­ture to the dish and stir around to in­cor­po­rate.

Serve im­me­di­ate­ly.


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