Occasionally I see produce I don't recognize or at least have never cooked with. Today I picked up some Karela, aka bitter gourd, bitter melon, etc.
Isn't it pretty all cut up? It smells like crushed dandelions. It is often salted and rinsed before cooking to remove some of the bitter juices, like eggplant. Or stuffed, which sounds interesting.
For dinner I planned saute it with lots of garlic, onion, tamarind pulp, coriander seeds, turmeric and chili powders. They are not kidding about the 'bitter' part. I kept adding that tamarind, sugar, water, salt and cooking the heck out of it.
Served with chapati, packet dal (Yes, I am lazy. It is also surprisingly tasty.) and a green salad. Not to be confused with a leafy side salad back home: in India a 'green salad' is composed of various sliced fresh veggies, usually accompanied by cilantro and lime. Yum! We're pretty reckless and eat these at restaurants a lot too.
4 comments:
Your title implies more unusual food items to come! Which I'm looking forward to :) Are you using the web to get recipes?
Oh yes! On both counts. Though I still don't actually follow any of the recipes, I read a bunch before winging it. I'm particularly liking http://www.talimpu.com/.
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