7 September 2017
While shopping at Datça market recently, this spectacular-looking, knobbly, bright orange fruit grabbed our attention.
Subsequent googling revealed it to be a bitter melon, or bitter gourd, kudret narı in Turkish. Despute being popular in pan-Asian cooking, we couldn’t find too many Turkish recipes using bitter melon so we decided to mix it in with menemen, that breakfast fave in Turkey.
You’ll probably be able to track down bitter melons in your local Asian grocer’s. When picked they are yellow-green, resembling a bumpy cucumber, and when ripe they turn orange. Cooking helps remove some of the bitter taste of this curious-looking member of the squash family. Inside are bright red coloured seeds that can be removed and eaten.
Ingredients (serves 2-4)
100 g bitter melon
60 g green peppers
2 spring onions
1 medium-sized tomato
1 teaspoon each of dried thyme, oregano, black pepper and red chilli flakes
4 eggs
A dash of soy sauce
25 ml olive oil
Method
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and when hot add the chopped spring onion. Cook for two minutes over a medium heat and then add the peppers and seeded bitter melon, cut into 1-2 mm strips.
Cook for another two minutes and then add the chopped tomato, herbs and spices and a dash of soy sauce. Fry for 5 minutes and then reduce the heat and break the eggs into the mix. Keep stirring until you achieve the desired consistency of scrambled egg to your taste.
Serve with lashing of crusty bread.
Knidos Cookery Club 