Thoughts on these guys?

I know a great dish with these sopropo it's from Suriname. Delicious filled with minced meat onion garlic and madame jeanette chili in the oven. You can also add some cumin and tomato paste. Then put it in the oven for 20 minutes and you're set to go.

I thought the most bitter I ever tasted was this tea. Its bitterness is so strong and pure that every fiber in my body screamed I was drinking poison. I managed to keep it in though, and when made very mildly it can even be considered nice.

I'm curious how this compares to one of these bitter melons, just to have an idea. Anyone ever tried both? I would try the melons myself, but I don't think I can get them here. Don't know where at least.

Dude weed

What's the point of this tea?

Apparently healthy. Lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, they claim.

Making some today, guess I'll salt it for four hours.

my asian neighbor grows these. I think if you used them like jalapenos they could be good

salt doesn't help, except to dry it out that your sauce can then cover the bitter. you do best being very careful to get all the white pith, and then serve it with something savory-creamy that goes well with the bitterness, it's actually amazing with a simple albacore salad made with olive oil rather than mayo.

They make whatever you add them to taste exactly like a buch of people ate dinner, vomited back in the pot and then offered it to you...

I've never heard of these before but now that I have, I really want to try it.

Fucking this. The closest thing I can equate the taste to is stomach bile or earwax. I truly can't understand how this is eaten, let alone popular enough to be offered in my suburban grocery store.

Chinese and Indian stores should carry them.

They are fine when prepared correctly.

They're nature's buttplug. The correct way to prepare them is to wash them and shove them up your ass or the ass of another.

You have to dry it for a couple of hours before you cook it to cut the butterness. I typically fry it with garlic and masala and eat it with naan. My parents grow it so I usually eat it pretty often in the Summer.

that's the same claim as like every other tea and oil

The small green ones are very bitter, the larger Thai whitish ones much less so. Definitely not for everyone, but the extreme bitterness does work well as a foil against fatty foods like pork or eggs. Also makes a classic Chinese soup. My favorite way to have them is in a stir fry with fatty pork and black bean sauce.

The bitterness comes from quinine, the same stuff that makes tonic water bitter, so they're anti-malarial. In some Asian folk medicine they're considered to be good for diabetics because it's believed they also help with blood sugar regulation.

In Sri Lanka they slice them thinly and fry them. It's really good. They compliment a lot of their sweetish curries well.

The Chinese style is less enjoyable imo, but I can eat it. They're really healthy.

I love them. if you prep them right, they balance out other flavors in whatever you are making (usually a stir fry for me).

I have patrician appreciation for the entire spectrum of flavor, lil babies need not apply to eat these melons.

///B I T T E R B O I Z 2017///

Every time I see these at the super market, the phrase, "I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going" comes to mind.

HAHA OP, THEY LOOK LIKE CUCUMBERS OF CTHULHU! XD

I can't be the only one.

obligatory

My family cook the Indian type (the one in OP) in egg curry.

Onion, peeled, halved and sliced, 1 average
Garlic, peeled and minced or matchsticked, 4 cloves
Ginger, preferably young, peeled and matchsticked, a thumb's length
Tomato, 1-2, peeled and crushed
Medium sesame oil, 60ml/4tbsp
>or 50/50 mix of toasted sesame oil and peanut oil
Salt, as needed
Bitter gourds, trimmed, split, scooped and sliced, 300g
Water or veg stock, 100ml or so
Eggs, 2
Spices, toasted and powdered, 5tbsp
>you can use storebought curry powder or garam masala
Maldives fish, crushed, a handful
>or katsuobushi
Crispy shallot, a handful
Coriander leaves, a handful

Saute all aromatics in oil with the tomato, all salted generously, until nicely coloured.
Add the karavila and saute a bit until beginning to soften then add the water/stock.
Lower heat to maintain a low simmer to cook until karavila is finished through; meanwhile, beat the eggs with the spices.
Stir the karavila mixture into the eggs a spoonful at a time to temper.
When half the karavila mixture has been added, off the flame and stir the heat-tempered eggs into the pan.
Stir quickly to prevent tight curd scrambling and instead make a smoother sauce-like consistency.
Stir in the fish, shallot and coriander and adjust salt to taste.
Serve as a veg component of a rice plate meal. Makes 4-6 servings, depending on how many other dishes you've prepared.

It tastes terrible, so it MUST be healthy.

Those are some Lovecraftian pickles you've got there lad

How do these compare to raw untreated olives?

Oh, I thought you had to peel them.

They look so angry... menacing.

Are those bitter melons? Yeah, they suck. I don't understand why the heathen Chinee love them so much.

>They're so fucking bitter that it burns your tongue.
It's possible to prepare them so that most of the bitterness has been removed. I don't know how to do it, and don't care to learn. I did a quick search and it looks like there are a dozen or so different ways.

Not bad if you're into Okinawan food, but chances are most people tried it, traveled to or lived there.

It's best if you slice it up and pickle it and it's not bad if you throw it into stir fries or make Gouya Champru.

It's gouya.

Do not want. I like eating the leaves with boiled mung beans instead. Bitter melon's bitterness tends to stick a while even with careful preparation.

here.

Untreated olives are tannic/astringent. Karavila/bitter gourd/frogmelon are just very, very bitter. Due to its bitterness, nearly every (or every single one?) recipe for it you will find will include onion, to cut sweetness.
Another way to prepare it is to preserve it in oil which, you guessed it, also has onion. I don't like it that way, though, because most recipes for it include black cardamom which I think tastes of mothballs.

Okinawans have a different variety, I think, not the one in OP. And more than just that one tiny section of an archipelago nation eats bitter gourd.

I've never had the bitterness linger, but I notice east Asian recipes always say to salt and blanch before cooking. I tried that a few times. Found it made it more bitter than had I just left it alone.

>to cut sweetness
To ADD^^ sweetness, rather. And cut bitterness too, I guess.

>Okinawans have a different variety, I think, not the one in OP
Yeah, the spiky ones are the indian variety and generally more bitter, the more smooth-bumpy asian variety is less bitter though it's still bitter melon and not for everyone.