I was looking to supplement some vege into my meat dishes so it’s a bit more plant based- friendly. Why not bittergourd?
Bittergourd is one of my favourite vegetable. Bittergourd imported from Thailand sold in the Chinese Supermarket was so expensive in Glasgow. It was about 5£ a piece (about 800g).
Piglet used to ‘smuggle’ about 2 kg of bittergourd in his luggage when he visited me. My menu for the following weeks would be a mixture of bittergourd soup, bittergourd stir fry…. There was an incident in the airport when he was checked by customs. Luckily they were just looking for meat products and were fine with the bittergourd.
I was trying to decide into cutting it into a horizontal cut making it like a ‘boat’ or vertical cuts into ‘circle’ shape. Opted with the latter eventually.
Piglet exclaimed ‘yong tau foo!’ when he saw it.
Steamed Bitter Gourd Stuffed with Minced Pork Recipe
Ingredients
800g Bittergourd
300g Minced Pork
Ingredients for minced pork filling
2 tbs Chopped Spring Onions
1 tbs corn starch
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp chopped garlic
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
1 tbs Light Soy Sauce
1 tbs Shao Xing Wine
1 tbs sesame oil
Method
1.Mix ingredients for mince pork filling and mince pork and leave it for at least 1 hour (in the fridge).
2.Cut bittergourd into slices and remove seeds
3. Place bittergourd onto steaming plate and stuff mince pork filling in bittergourd.
4. Steam for 25 minutes.