Hello, everybody. So, let's talk today about the Momordica genus.
This is something that I have talked about a little bit in the past.
I've had, I think, two.
I've had the gac fruit,
which is a big red spiky ball. People make juice out of. It tastes like absolutely nothing.
And another one that looks very similar to the gac, only it's got like smooth
skin, and tastes fairly similar as well. But although they are
commonly used in some parts of the world,
not so common here.The most common of all of these Momordica genus I think is
this guy right here.
This is the bitter melon, also known as the bitter gourd.
There is also an Indian variety. So, this is what you call a
Chinese bitter gourd.
This is the Indian bitter gourd. But they are actually the same
exact genus and the same exact species. They are just different cultivars. This one, as you can see, is
smooth on the outside, and this one has all these little bumpy bits.
So, there might be a difference in flavor as well. Okay, so first let me start with this one here
and I'm going to just cut this in half like so. I also might get rid of that little guy and, yeah,
here's the inside.
You can see right there-- and sorry if you've got
trypophobia-- but you can see little seeds in there. Pretty nasty looking, like a disease. It's good.
Now what you do with this is you take a spoon and you
scoop out all of this gunk.
Now, some dishes do call for the pith. They say to use it.
And if you juice it, you can I guess use the pith as well.
But it's like, I guess it's like a matter of preference.
If I see like a trend, it's more often that Indian
recipes call for the for the insides to be used.
And different
like Chinese dishes and stuff like that, will call for you to remove it.
It looks quite similar in there, but
looks about maybe around the same amount of seeds and everything, but this one has more
pith. It's bigger, so that might just be why. There's probably a little bit more
food in the Chinese variety.
It seems a little bit easier to actually get the pulp out of the Indian variety.
So there is a bonus point
goes towards the Indian variety. I'm just cutting this
rather thin.
Some people think you might need to like cut off the outer bit. That's not true. You can keep that on.
I'm gonna cut off the little points though,
and just do the same thing.
So, here are the
two
slices back-to-back.
If we're gonna go by appearance, I'm gonna give the gold star to the
Indian one, just because it looks a little bit more badass with those spikes.
But yeah, this is fine too, if you're into that sort of thing.
Ok. Now, the moment that I've been dreading. I'm going to try these raw.
People eat these raw. You can eat it raw, but when people eat these raw,
they are not eating it raw because they want to. They're doing it because it is
supposed to be good for you-- cures diabetes and
what-have-you. But...
don't want to do it. The most popular way
to eat these raw, is to make a juice out of it, but I'm not going to bother with that.
I'm just going to try it as it is.
It's funny that this is supposed to be good for you, because it tastes like something that's going to kill you.
It's very bitter, as you would imagine.
It's very green tasting.
It's like if you took like a green bean,
and you just like drained all the sweetness and all the things that you like about green beans out of it,
and you just like made it super bitter. Next we're gonna move on to the Indian one.
It's different.
The bitter flavor is a lot stronger.
I'm sorry, India.
I mean, that might be a good thing if you're going into this because you want bitterness-- if you're going into this because
you're equating bitterness with health.
They both taste like bitter poison, but this one tastes like a bitterer, more poisonous poison.
If you're going to go into this raw,
I would recommend starting with the Chinese one.
Now, in order to get rid of some of that bitterness,
what you do is you put salt in it. Salt is supposed to neutralize some of it, and also sucks out some of the liquid.
So, if you want to
retain all that liquid for some reason,
you can do that
as well.
Some people like to drink the liquid that comes out,
which I'm not gonna do. Going to do the same thing with the Indian one.
I'm gonna let these sit for about 15 minutes,
just to give the salt some time to get some that liquid and some of the bitterness out of it. I'm gonna take one
clove of garlic just to make it like, you know,
somewhat edible. I don't want to put any additional spices in just because I want to focus on what the fruit tastes like.
I think the garlic is
minor enough, where it's okay to add like a little bit of something, and
the garlic will also help get rid of some of the bitterness.
Yeah, look at that.
It's working. I can probably squeeze that stuff forever,
but I managed to get quite a little juice out of it. That's not too bad.
It's probably like, I don't know, a half cup. So, let's move on to the Indian one
and do the same thing.
The rind seems to be like a little drier
than the
Chinese one. So, I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing,
so I'm not gonna give one or the other the gold star. So, like I said, usually
people do a lot of things when they make this. Me, I'm gonna keep it super simple.
I'm just gonna take a little splash of oil and
I'm going to take
some of this garlic here. I'm gonna put a little bit more garlic in with the Chinese one, just because
there is a little bit more fruit there. If you want to do
this properly, the Indian way is to take just a ton of spices, usually onion,
tomato, coriander, turmeric, some people put coconut in it. There's like a whole lot of
stuff that you can do with the Indian one. Typically in China, they do it like sauteed with
or cooked with eggs. So, you take eggs and
scallions, and maybe like a little bit of spicing, but like they make more of like an omelet out of it.
I think the eggs would be good because it would work
with that bitterness a little bit. But most recipes don't cook this thing for very long.
It's been about 4 minutes, and these, as you can see, already look pretty cooked.
It smells pretty good. It smells a little bit
like french fries.
Let's move on to the
Indian bitter gourd.
This took a little bit longer. It took maybe
like five
minutes, six minutes. So, I guess the Chinese one gets the gold star here, but it's comparable. It's not that much different.
Looks pretty good. I'm gonna start with the Chinese one.
It's alright. You know, it's much less bitter when you cook it.
You know, it still kind of reminds me a little bit of like a green bean. It's got that kind of green kind of flavor.
But, obviously, a lot more bitter. This
cooking it and draining it and everything
makes it maybe like 75%
less bitter. Still bitter, but not bad. The little bit of garlic in there is pretty nice, and the fact that it's fried,
is nice. It reminds me a little bit about like eating
like a potato, but like bitter and not as pleasant.
But if this were cooked
with
curry, like people do, or eggs, like people do, or made it into like a pancake or something,
that'd be pretty good. I would eat it. Next, let's try the Indian one.
I think this might actually be less bitter. Oh, maybe it's because like, I've already had something very bitter and I'm still feeling it
or something, but it doesn't seem that bad. Try another piece of the Chinese one.
I think I like burnt out the bitter taste buds on my tongue, cuz that doesn't taste bitter anymore either.
That's actually a good thing.
If you don't want this to be super bitter, I think like the initial bite might be kind of bitter,
but then as you keep eating it, it's gonna kind of like wake up those taste buds and they're gonna be like
"Oh, okay, this is cool." But yeah, the Indian one has like a little bit like a extra mellow flavor, like
slightly like dried fruit or something, but they're very, very close. They're very close in flavor.
The Chinese one is a little bit more beany. This one is maybe a little bit more fruity. But, all together, both good.
I see really no major reason to pick one over the other. They are subtly different.
I think I'm leaning a little bit towards the Indian one,
because I don't like green beans, and the Chinese one has a green bean flavor. But, both of them are good.
So, I recommend checking them out. There's going to be a preview at the end of this video, so don't go anywhere.
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