Recipe: Stir-fried bitter melon and egg (kho qua xao trung)

Bitter melon is another thing that you either love or hate. Among my friends and relatives who have tried bitter melon, 42 percent(*) find it too bitter to try a second time. My mom is a special case. She used to shun it, then little me got a bad fever and had to eat it to help lowering my temperature (bitter melon has medicinal effects), mom was so worried that I wouldn’t eat it (like every toddler, I didn’t like food), but I chowed it down at first try, mom got curious, tried and started liking it too. That’s the story she told me, but I think she started liking it because she started making it, and everything she makes tastes great.

Even in the Bay Area, bitter melon is somewhat rare and expensive. The only restaurant I know of that has bitter melon is China Village on Solano, and a plate costs 10.95 with 70% egg and 30% bitter melon. Sushi California used to have it as an Okinawan specialty but had to cut it due to low demand. ๐ Chinese and Vietnamese markets have them, but they can be far. Thankfully, today Berkeley Bowl has a small box of maybe 40 counts, so I grabbed a few.
Stir-fried bitter melon with eggs (in Vietnamese: Khแป qua xร o trแปฉng)
INGREDIENTS (8 servings):
– 5 bitter melons (less green ones with fat stripes, i.e., the East Asian variety, are much less bitter than the skinny ridged subcontinent counterpart)
– 5 eggs (or however many you like)
– 12 cloves of garlic (I just happen to like garlic a lot)
– Salt
– 1/3 cups of olive oil
PREPARATION:
– Wash the bitter melons, cut off both ends of each fruit.
– Cut each fruit length-wise in half.

– Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds (along with the fluffy white part). Redder seeds mean riper and less bitter melons. The red film outside the seeds are edibleย (I’ve eaten them while prepping the melons), but their mildly sweet taste is not much to talk to about.
– Slice each half into crescents of ~ 3-4 mm (1/8 inch) thick

– Soak the slices in water (with a bit of salt) for ~ 30 minutes to partially remove the bitterness.
– Peel and slice garlic, set aside.
COOKING:
– Put oil in a skillet, medium heat, wait for oil to get hot and throw in the garlic to brown.
– Drain and add the bitter melon into the skillet.
– Lightly mix so that the melon slices at the bottom don’t just sit in oil while the top ones hang out.
– Cover and cook for ~ 5 minutes.
– Uncover, stir.
– Add 5 eggs as you would make scramble eggs.
– Scramble the eggs with the melons until the eggs are fully cooked.
– Sprinkle salt to taste.
Foodnote:
(*) This is not a fabricated statistics. I counted 12 people (excluding me) who have tried it and given me confirmed opinions on bitter melon. Five of them grimaced when the word was mentioned. If you’ve tried it and decided to be on either side, let me know so I can update my statistics.
(**) Total cost: bitter melons: 2.06 lb x $2.59/lb = $5.34; box of 12 cage-free large eggs: $3.19; prep time + waiting time: 40 minutes; cook time: 10 minutes; cleaning time: 10 minutes.





Howdy I am so excited I found your site, I really found you by error, while I was browsing on Google for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say cheers for a marvelous post and a all round enjoyable blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to go through it all at the minute but I have saved it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the awesome work.
1I got what you mean , regards for putting up.Woh I am happy to find this website through google. “I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.” by E. M. Forster.
2I have read a few just right stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how much attempt you put to make any such fantastic informative website.
3Hey, I think your site might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog in Ie, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, very good blog!
4This is really interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post. Also, I’ve shared your site in my social networks!
5Does your site have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to send you an e-mail. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it expand over time.
6Pretty! This was a really wonderful post. Thank you for your provided information.
7Hi my friend! I wish to say that this post is awesome, nice written and include almost all vital infos. I’d like to see more posts like this.
8I believe this site has very good pent written content content.
9Hi there just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same outcome.
10The very heart of your writing while appearing agreeable initially, did not really sit properly with me personally after some time. Someplace within the paragraphs you were able to make me a believer unfortunately just for a short while. I however have a problem with your leaps in logic and you might do nicely to fill in all those breaks. In the event that you actually can accomplish that, I will definitely be fascinated.
11An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you should write more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
12You have observed very interesting details! ps decent site. “What a grand thing, to be loved What a grander thing still, to love” by Victor Hugo.
13I do like the manner in which you have framed this matter plus it does indeed supply me some fodder for thought. However, because of what precisely I have seen, I just simply wish when other feed-back pile on that individuals stay on point and not get started upon a tirade associated with some other news of the day. Yet, thank you for this superb point and although I do not agree with it in totality, I regard the point of view.
14Wonderful work! This is the type of info that should be shared around the net. Shame on Google for not positioning this post higher! Come on over and visit my website . Thanks =)
15Excellent website. Lots of useful info here. I am sending it to some friends ans also sharing in delicious. And certainly, thanks for your sweat!
16I went over this web site and I think you have a lot of good information, saved to bookmarks (:.
17์ต์ํ ์ผ์์ ์๋ก์ด ์ทจํฅ์ ๋ํ๋ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ฌ. ๊ฐ๊ฐ์ ์ธ ๊ณต๊ฐ๊ณผ ๋ค์ฑ๋ก์ด ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ, ์ค๋ ๊ธฐ์ตํ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌ์ ๋ง๋๋ณด์ธ์. ๋๋ง์ ์๋๋ก ๋จธ๋ฌผ๋ฉฐ ๋น์ ์๊ฒ ์ด์ธ๋ฆฌ๋ ํน๋ณํ ์๊ฐ์ ์ฐพ์๊ฐ๋๋ค.
18I like this weblog its a master peace ! Glad I observed this on google .
19์ต์ํ ์ผ์์ ์๋ก์ด ์ทจํฅ์ ๋ํ๋ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ฌ. ๊ฐ๊ฐ์ ์ธ ๊ณต๊ฐ๊ณผ ๋ค์ฑ๋ก์ด ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ, ์ค๋ ๊ธฐ์ตํ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌ์ ๋ง๋๋ณด์ธ์. ๋๋ง์ ์๋๋ก ๋จธ๋ฌผ๋ฉฐ ๋น์ ์๊ฒ ์ด์ธ๋ฆฌ๋ ํน๋ณํ ์๊ฐ์ ์ฐพ์๊ฐ๋๋ค.
20์ต์ํ ์ผ์์ ์๋ก์ด ์ทจํฅ์ ๋ํ๋ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ฌ. ๊ฐ๊ฐ์ ์ธ ๊ณต๊ฐ๊ณผ ๋ค์ฑ๋ก์ด ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ, ์ค๋ ๊ธฐ์ตํ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌ์ ๋ง๋๋ณด์ธ์. ๋๋ง์ ์๋๋ก ๋จธ๋ฌผ๋ฉฐ ๋น์ ์๊ฒ ์ด์ธ๋ฆฌ๋ ํน๋ณํ ์๊ฐ์ ์ฐพ์๊ฐ๋๋ค.
21Saved as a favorite, I really like your blog!
22์ต์ํ ์ผ์์ ์๋ก์ด ์ทจํฅ์ ๋ํ๋ ์ฌ๊ธฐ์ฌ. ๊ฐ๊ฐ์ ์ธ ๊ณต๊ฐ๊ณผ ๋ค์ฑ๋ก์ด ์ด์ผ๊ธฐ, ์ค๋ ๊ธฐ์ตํ ๋ฐ๊ฒฌ์ ๋ง๋๋ณด์ธ์. ๋๋ง์ ์๋๋ก ๋จธ๋ฌผ๋ฉฐ ๋น์ ์๊ฒ ์ด์ธ๋ฆฌ๋ ํน๋ณํ ์๊ฐ์ ์ฐพ์๊ฐ๋๋ค.
23You have remarked very interesting points! ps decent web site.
24Perfect work you have done, this site is really cool with wonderful information.
25์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์ฌ์ดํธ๋ฅผ ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ๋ก ์ดํด๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ด์ค, ์ปค๋ฎค๋ํฐ, ์์, ์นํฐ, ์ผํ, ์ํ ์ ๋ณด์ ์จ๋ผ์ธ ๋๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ์ฐพ๋ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์ฆ๊ฒจ์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๊ด๋ฆฌ, ์ ์ ์ค๋ฅ ํด๊ฒฐ๊น์ง ์๋ดํฉ๋๋ค. ๋ชฉ์ ์ ๋ง๋ ๋งํฌ๋ฅผ ๊ณ ๋ฅด๊ณ ๋ ํธ๋ฆฌํ๊ฒ ์ด์ฉํ์ธ์.
26์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์ฌ์ดํธ๋ฅผ ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ๋ก ์ดํด๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ด์ค, ์ปค๋ฎค๋ํฐ, ์์, ์นํฐ, ์ผํ, ์ํ ์ ๋ณด์ ์จ๋ผ์ธ ๋๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ์ฐพ๋ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์ฆ๊ฒจ์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๊ด๋ฆฌ, ์ ์ ์ค๋ฅ ํด๊ฒฐ๊น์ง ์๋ดํฉ๋๋ค. ๋ชฉ์ ์ ๋ง๋ ๋งํฌ๋ฅผ ๊ณ ๋ฅด๊ณ ๋ ํธ๋ฆฌํ๊ฒ ์ด์ฉํ์ธ์.
27์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์ฌ์ดํธ๋ฅผ ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ๋ก ์ดํด๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ด์ค, ์ปค๋ฎค๋ํฐ, ์์, ์นํฐ, ์ผํ, ์ํ ์ ๋ณด์ ์จ๋ผ์ธ ๋๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ์ฐพ๋ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์ฆ๊ฒจ์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๊ด๋ฆฌ, ์ ์ ์ค๋ฅ ํด๊ฒฐ๊น์ง ์๋ดํฉ๋๋ค. ๋ชฉ์ ์ ๋ง๋ ๋งํฌ๋ฅผ ๊ณ ๋ฅด๊ณ ๋ ํธ๋ฆฌํ๊ฒ ์ด์ฉํ์ธ์.
28After study a number of of the weblog posts on your website now, and I really like your approach of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web site list and will likely be checking again soon. Pls take a look at my website as nicely and let me know what you think.
29์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์ฌ์ดํธ๋ฅผ ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ๋ก ์ดํด๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ด์ค, ์ปค๋ฎค๋ํฐ, ์์, ์นํฐ, ์ผํ, ์ํ ์ ๋ณด์ ์จ๋ผ์ธ ๋๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ์ฐพ๋ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์ฆ๊ฒจ์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๊ด๋ฆฌ, ์ ์ ์ค๋ฅ ํด๊ฒฐ๊น์ง ์๋ดํฉ๋๋ค. ๋ชฉ์ ์ ๋ง๋ ๋งํฌ๋ฅผ ๊ณ ๋ฅด๊ณ ๋ ํธ๋ฆฌํ๊ฒ ์ด์ฉํ์ธ์.
30Some truly wonderful work on behalf of the owner of this site, utterly great articles.
31Really nice pattern and excellent subject material, hardly anything else we require :D.
32Appreciating the time and effort you put into your website and detailed information you present. It’s nice to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same unwanted rehashed information. Fantastic read! I’ve saved your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.
33You could certainly see your skills within the paintings you write. The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to mention how they believe. All the time follow your heart. “There are only two industries that refer to their customers as users.” by Edward Tufte.
34I’m not sure why but this blog is loading incredibly slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a issue on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists.
35์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์น์ฌ์ดํธ ์ฃผ์๋ฅผ ์ฝ๊ณ ๋น ๋ฅด๊ฒ ์ฐพ์๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ ์ฃผ์๋ชจ์๊ณผ ๋งํฌ๋ชจ์, ์ฃผ์์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ๋ณ๊ฒฝ๋ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์์ ํ ๋งํฌ ํ์ธ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๊น์ง ํ๋์ ์ดํด๋ณผ ์ ์์ต๋๋ค.
36์ฃผ์์ฝ์์ ํ์ํ ์น์ฌ์ดํธ ์ฃผ์๋ฅผ ์ฝ๊ณ ๋น ๋ฅด๊ฒ ์ฐพ์๋ณด์ธ์. ๋ถ์ผ๋ณ ์ฃผ์๋ชจ์๊ณผ ๋งํฌ๋ชจ์, ์ฃผ์์ฐพ๊ธฐ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๋ถํฐ ๋ณ๊ฒฝ๋ ์ฃผ์ ํ์ธ, ์์ ํ ๋งํฌ ํ์ธ ๋ฐฉ๋ฒ๊น์ง ํ๋์ ์ดํด๋ณผ ์ ์์ต๋๋ค.
37Very interesting points you have observed, appreciate it for putting up. “Death is Nature’s expert advice to get plenty of Life.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
38Hey there! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any trouble with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing several weeks of hard work due to no data backup. Do you have any methods to stop hackers?
39Outstanding post however , I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Kudos!
40WONDERFUL Post.thanks for share..more wait .. โฆ
41I got what you mean , thankyou for posting.Woh I am pleased to find this website through google.
42Loving the info on this site, you have done great job on the posts.
43When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four e-mails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Bless you!
44You have observed very interesting points! ps decent site.
45I wanted to send a simple comment in order to appreciate you for the unique ideas you are placing here. My extended internet investigation has finally been recognized with awesome points to share with my neighbours. I would assert that we readers are unquestionably blessed to be in a great network with many marvellous people with good tips. I feel truly grateful to have come across your entire web page and look forward to many more thrilling minutes reading here. Thanks a lot once again for all the details.
46Oh my goodness! an incredible article dude. Thanks However I’m experiencing challenge with ur rss . Don’t know why Unable to subscribe to it. Is there anybody getting similar rss downside? Anybody who is aware of kindly respond. Thnkx
47I was very happy to search out this net-site.I needed to thanks in your time for this wonderful learn!! I undoubtedly enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you blog post.
48Today, while I was at work, my sister stole my iPad and tested to see if it can survive a 25 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!
49์ฃผ์์ฝ์ ์์ฃผ ์ฐพ๋ ์ฌ์ดํธ์ ์ต์ ์ฃผ์์ ๋ณ๊ฒฝ๋ ์ฃผ์๋ฅผ ์นดํ ๊ณ ๋ฆฌ๋ณ๋ก ์ ๋ฆฌํ ์ฃผ์๋ชจ์ยท๋งํฌ๋ชจ์ ํ๋ซํผ์ ๋๋ค. ์ค์๊ฐ์ผ๋ก ์ ๋ฐ์ดํธ๋๋ ๋ฐ๋ก๊ฐ๊ธฐ ๋งํฌ๋ก ์ํ๋ ์ฌ์ดํธ์ ๋น ๋ฅด๊ฒ ์ ์ํ์ธ์.
50