I guess bitter melon is an acquired taste. I buy it for an 89-yr old woman from Trinidad, where it was growing in her garden many many years ago. It's a folk remedy for a lot of ailments, and she believes that it helps her diabetes. The smaller the more bitter. The store where I get it has two varieties, one the size of a cucumber, the other has rougher skin and is smaller. Rosana's garden many years ago produced ones that were even smaller and more bitter, about fingerling size.

Rosana just cuts up roughly and boils it. And also drinks the water. I admit that I haven't tried it. ;-)

I also saw banana flowers and those were a mystery to me, too.

This post was edited by sushipup on Thu, May 16, 13 at 10:15

A common way to cook bitter melon is to stuff it with a pork mixture and make soup. The link has the details. I've tried this, and I find it tasty--but bear in mind, it IS bitter! If you don't like tonic water, I doubt that you would like bitter melon. It's much more bitter than, for example, a highly hopped IPA.

You can also slice the bitter melon, remove the seeds, sprinkle salt on the melon, squeeze the melon pieces with a paper towel to extract some of the juice, and rinse them off and stir fry them with meat. That technique does take away some of the bitterness.

While I do like bitter melon, I'm currently using it for something somewhat diabolical. I've had problems in the past with some two-legged predators snitching stuff out of my garden. I'm growing some bitter melon along with cucumbers....I can't wait for one of those thieves to steal a bitter melon, thinking it's a cucumber. Hee hee hee...

Here is a link that might be useful: bitter melon soup

LOL, arley, that could be fun to watch.

I also have tried bitter melon and did not care for it, so I won't be of any help there.

I do use turmeric a lot and like it, but it does stain clothing, fingers, counters, wooden spoons. It's used widely in Indian cooking and I use it when I can sweet relish. I'm mostly accustomed to dry turmeric, but did get a fresh turmeric root at the Asian grocery once and grated it into lentils and made a rice dish with vegetables and diced turmeric root. It was very mildly spicy, but added more color than flavor.

Bread, now that I'm familiar with. (grin)

Annie

Haha...good idea for the diversion tactic in the garden.

We do like bitter. Last night i sliced one lengthwise, removed the seedy center and sliced into half moons. Caramelized an onion and tossed them in...just had to taste it. Good,(ish)
Thanks for the thai link! I recently made fantastic tiny meatballs, made way too many as i tend to do...froze the rest to drop into soups.
I always have MisoMaster on hand as it lasts forever and is such a good quick soup base with scallions, ginger, cilantro, lime and celo noodles. I usually drop in a few shrimp or a small salmon steak...stuffed bitter melon would be another option.
The turmeric, hmm, one is sitting on my chop board. Making a german potato salad and a beet cole slaw for the weekend bbq. Maybe i'll just slice it into thin rounds and 'neon' all my sides.
I only grow zucchini for its flowers so i have no fear of eating banana flowers...right now it is a good lookin' garnish. Need to do some more research on that one.

This link is fun. Banana flowers and a link to her bitter melon experience....and some nice pics.
One responder mentioned baking the bitter melon till crispy. And another suggested pickling...i'm making a batch of fresh fridge pickles this morning so i will put some in...

Here is a link that might be useful: adventures in ingredients

I've had banana flowers... they're very astringent. You need to remove the hard stamen before using in a dish (easy to do), but I definitely wouldn't bother with them again.